


Her Killing Moon

by Angelic_Hellraiser



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Bestiality (sorta), Blood Drinking, Character Turned Into Vampire, Dry Humping, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Full Moon, Gothic, Jealous Kylo Ren, Oral Sex, Original Character(s), Rough Sex, Sex, Vampires, Werewolves, Wet Dream, werewolf!finn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-03-17 09:36:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13656315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angelic_Hellraiser/pseuds/Angelic_Hellraiser
Summary: It was a simple task, a simple hunt. Track down the girl from the subway, the one who – by some bizarre stroke of luck – had ended up with the object. Kylo Ren was a master of his talent and loyal to his cause. Nothing could shake that loyalty, nor the trust he held in his supreme leader. Nothing.





	1. Dark Mother Metropolis

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** [Golgotha Tenement Blues - Machines of Loving Grace](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CY0ZjtuHvs) sets the mood for this first chapter. This project began mostly because I just wanted to write vamp/werewolf smut for Reylo. I regret nothing. Thank you. (Mind those warnings!) 
> 
> ** Updates will be sporadic depending on my RL schedule!
> 
>  **OVERALL WARNINGS:** blood, gore, language, blood kink, rough kink  & explicit sexual content (BE SURE TO CHECK THE TAGS ABOVE, TOO!)
> 
>  **SIDE NOTE:** All the pixel art you see is made by me. Please let me know if you wish to use it. Thank you.
> 
>  **OTHER PLACES TO FIND ME:  
> **  
>  **Reylo Tumblr:** [ReyloisBlessed](https://reyloisblessed.tumblr.com/)  
>  **Personal Tumblr:** [angelic-hellraiser](https://angelic-hellraiser.tumblr.com/)  
>  **Twitter:** [A_Hellraiser](https://twitter.com/A_Hellraiser)  
>  **deviantART:** [AngelicHellraiser](https://www.deviantart.com/angelichellraiser)  
>  **Instagram:** [angelichellraiser](https://www.instagram.com/angelichellraiser/)  
>  **FFN:** [Obsidian Lullaby](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/4761457/)  
>  **Wattpad:** [AngelicHellraiser](https://www.wattpad.com/user/AngelicHellraiser)

* * *

 .

 _"_ _What hath night to do with sleep?_ _"_

\- John Milton

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* * *

 

 

 

 

Night winds ruffle his damp locks of hair and goose-flesh rises on his nude skin as the faint stars above flicker against the thick veil of city smog. He sighs, heavy eyes drifting closed as the scents of the city waft up from the streets below, dank alleyways, car pollution, manhole covers belching vaporous filth through their open seams.

He hates the city. A fetid nest overgrown with countless hungry mouths open and screaming.

Still, addictions of the base animal call to him in those secret moments and he finds, in a bleak and twisted way—a way he'll never admit to openly—he can appreciate the cravings. Women strolling the lamp-lit streets with legs that go on forever, smooth red lips and smoky eyes, hollow eyes. Vagabonds lingering in the trash littered alcoves with their sleeves rolled back, nasty needle bites tattooing their skin. Over zealous hands stuffing food down a crowded gullet, the separation between hunger and  _hunger_  only a blur, the actions an endless cycle of reflex.

No matter how many times you feed it—that creeping, ravenous wolf grinning behind quiet your eyes—it's never enough.

_Nothing fills that emptiness._

He pads back into his apartment, bare feet warm despite the chilly floor. His bed remains untouched, perfectly made, the lamp on his nightstand illuminating a handwritten note.  _'Subway'_  it reads. No time. No date. No further information. Though, the handwriting is unmistakable. Kaydel Ko Connix.

A knock abruptly sounds at his door, sharp and loathe to be ignored.

He ignores it, tongue rolling along his teeth behind his lips, thinking.

Another knock, harder.

Perhaps he should have visited his supreme leader sooner, spoken to him openly about... his thoughts. But the idea of revealing those weaknesses to anyone, let alone his master, unsettles him. To entertain such childish notions is unbecoming of what he is  _now_ , how far he has come. He halts the current train of thought with a disgusted exhale, his lips curling with a bitter snarl.

_The past is a dead thing._

And he doesn't need guidance on crushing his weaknesses. He has perfect control.  _Perfect control._

A third knock.

"What!" he snaps.

"Open the door, Ren." Demands a stiff voice.

Armitage Hux, General Hux as he prefers to be called. A man driven by simple needs, useful as he may be. He runs his hands through his hair, annoyance boiling his blood. Never has he understood why Snoke keeps such a vile creature in a seat of power. Hux delights in power alone. He desires no other purpose but to dominate. There is nothing principled about his motives. Nothing worthy of his seat.

Ren takes his time finding fresh clothes. A cable-knit turtle neck, leather gloves, comfortable trousers, boots and a double-breasted leather trench coat. All in varying shades of black.

"I don't have time—

He strides to the door and abruptly rips it open, meeting Hux's gaze with swirling night eyes. "I take it there's a good reason you're pestering me." His fingers dig into the door frame.

"I will not be addressed in such a manner." the man lips peel back over perfect white teeth. "You will—

"Get to the point." Ren drawls. "Why are you here?"

A dramatic pause, blue eyes burning at him like licks of azure fire. Then, Hux's mouth twists in a derisive smile. "Snoke wants to see you. Now."

Ren's face remains blank. "The supreme leader is sending you out as his errand boy? Should I be questioning your proficiency as a military leader, general? Your skills have proven disappointing as of late."

Hux's face blisters red with rage, but he swallows his retort. "You know as well as I that he does not like to be kept waiting."

"I don't follow orders from you." Kylo says smoothly, leaning into Hux's space.

Hux arches a cruel eyebrow. "A dog's only talent is following orders."

Before Kylo has a chance to reply, Hux sweeps around and saunters down the hall to the elevator. He lopes after him, shoulders heaving with murderous breaths.

The elevator ride down to the parking garage is infinitely more suffocating with Kylo deliberately standing in Hux's space again, watching his reflection in the elevator doors. Hux does much the same, his eyes pretending to be everywhere but Kylo's imposing shadow.

 

.

 

****

**.**

 

The Supremacy, a sprawling estate in the rural mountainous range away from the writhing metropolis where few humans tend to frequent. Unless of course, they do so at their own peril. Kylo once questioned himself why, if he hates the city so, would he purchase an apartment at the very heart of it. Out here, the world is quiet, serene. But he had deduced that it was the distance—the noise, in fact, that drew him.

Breathing in the fresh mountain scents, his chest aches with the hunger for moist earth between his toes, his body chilled by the night air and his eyes sharp in the moonlight. He misses this place.

Still, the noise of the city lured him, like a flame.

And that's when the  _thoughts_  began. Traitorous things.

Inside, a sea of shining monsters part for them, eyes cutting down pale, arrogant noses as Kylo glares beyond of them, head held high. They know better than to utter a word in his presence. Better to utter it behind his back. Still ill-advised, but a safer route, nonetheless. Hux waves his hand dismissively to an approaching subordinate and continues through to a yawning corridor, and then on to a long descending flight of stairs.

Kylo remains close at his back, smirking as he sees the general's chin turn ever-so-slightly in his direction, eyes crawling over a rigid shoulder. Simple delights are a hard thing to come by in this life. Kylo makes damn sure to take them where he can.

There are three sub-levels below the mansion: a military level complete with barracks, showers, training rooms and weapons vaults, a prisoner level and the deepest level, the supreme leader's sepulcher. Only the most trusted are allowed to enter.

Kylo does not pause as they pass the prison cells, his nostrils flaring at the odor of blood. Werewolf blood.

"General Hux. Kylo Ren." Snoke intones as they enter the throne room, the heavy doors slamming shut behind them. "What news, general. I do hope you have something more productive to to tell me this time."

Hux flourishes his hand with a half bow. "Supreme leader, we have garnered recent information on the location where the exchange will take place."

"Where?" Snoke whispers, tendrils of his voice creeping over the walls.

"Hazel Street Station. Platform 3."

The supreme leader chuckles lowly, his arctic eyes probing into the only occupant of the room who has yet to speak. "Excellent, my good general. Well done. You may leave us."

Hux's sneer does not go unnoticed as he about-faces and disappears out the doors, allowing them to punctuate his exit with a thundering crack. Kylo ignores the flamboyant display of rivalry, bowing to his knees with his gaze fixed on the marble floor. The supreme leader watches him, posture inhumanly still, eerily long fingers curled over the throne's armrests. Kylo doesn't need to look up at him to know the ugly, exposed vein of his neck pulses with a patient anticipation, tendons gone rigid along his crooked jaw.

"The war is shifting. Have you felt it?"

Kylo answers without hesitation. "Yes."

Snoke rises from his throne, tall and ancient. "The mighty Kylo Ren. Such a curious creature you are, to hunt your own kind." He stops in front of Kylo, towering. "I've tried for generations to stamp out the werewolf menace, but when I found you, I knew you were special."

Silence weighs heavy in the air.

"The object we seek will be delivered tomorrow night." his finally continues, voice darkening with promise. "Make sure we do not suffer another loss."

"I would permit no such inadequacies." Kylo bows lower, leaning his shoulders forward.

Snoke considers his response for a long time, knife-like gaze penetrating his mind, delving deep, rooting out something hidden. "We shall see."

 

.

 

****

**.**

 

His knights greet him near the barracks before he ascends above ground. The Knights of Ren have been his companions for decades, centuries in some cases. One of the knights he even turned himself. Ruelle. She stands proudly with the others, small face pale except for the shock of thin rose lips and eyes dancing with excitement. Silas steps in front of her, nodding curtly. Silas has been with Kylo since the beginning, a cunning and formidable combatant.

"Master Ren." he addresses him.

"Caught your scent the second you stepped on the property." Ruelle pipes up, unable to contain herself. "Rumors are circulating. You went to see the supreme leader?"

Kylo looks over all of them, allowing the silence to be his answer. "We move tomorrow night."

"A hunt?" Ruelle pants.

Kylo glares at her and she averts her eyes, instantly dropping her head. The stiff quiet which follows sees that all his knights turn their faces away, each gaze respectfully on the floor.

"Meet me at Hazel Street Station." Kylo asserts crisply and departs.

Their eyes lift from the floor and follow him up the steps, their thoughts hot on his heels as he exits the mansion, the previous shiny monstrosities glowering at him from lavish balconies and festooned couches, glittering wine glasses of blood in their hands. He inhales a needed breath of fresh air the second the doors slip shut behind him and lingers beneath the ghostly crescent moon, angling his face to the stars unsure of why, in that particular moment, he seeks  _something_.

They hadn't offered to drive him back.  _No need_ , he thinks. He'd rather walk, anyway.

 

.

 

****

**.**

 

Across the cityscape a young woman sits silently aboard a train, heart beating strongly as she grips her weathered coat to her body, hair pulled messily atop her head. She glances out at the blurry city line as the first morning light pierces through the haze, lips parting.

 _What hath night to do with sleep_ , she recites bitterly, lips moving with the words. Dry lips; she wets them.  _The lonely never sleep._

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **PLEASE REMEMBER TO REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW!  
> ** **CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM IS WELCOME!**  
>    
> 


	2. Monochrome Finish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N:**[The Killing Moon - Echo & the Bunnymen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWz0JC7afNQ) sets the mood for this introduction to Rey's POV. I'd originally wanted to name Rey's dog BB, but I didn't feel it matched the look of what I saw in my head (a sable German Shepherd), so I chose a name that means awakening for the sake of symbolism. :P
> 
>  **WARNINGS:** cursing, offensive language, action violence, blood, descriptions of emesis and nausea

 

* * *

 

.

_"I fucked with the forces that our eyes can't see,_

_Now the darkness got a hold on me."_

\- Lord Huron

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* * *

 

 

Waking with a migraine headache isn't exactly how she hoped to begin her day, or more aptly put, her night. This new schedule isn't her cup of tea, either. She's a day person, rain or shine, early or late. Night is for sleeping... if one can sleep. For her, let's just say that some sleep is better than none at all.

Still, the pay for this job is decent enough. It puts food on her table and clothes on her back. The rundown flat she moved into a month ago would normally be out of her price range, but her boss owns these warehouse apartments. A blessing? Sometimes, she surmises, but a curse more often than not.

She remains wrapped in the blankets for a while longer, massaging her temples and pushing her face into her pillow, wishing she could squash the pain away. It radiates out over the expanse of her skull, pulsing with all the civility of an ice-pick stabbing into her right eye. Missing work tonight is not an option. Taking a deep breath, she rises to her feet and grasps at the brick wall, her equilibrium swirling.

 _I can do this_ , she murmurs inwardly. _It's just a little migraine. No big deal._

Bodhi hops down beside her, tail wagging low to the floor and heavy ears pricked forward. His favorite spot was usually the foot of her air mattress, but he had curled up beside her while she slept, no doubt sensing the migraine before it woke her. She absently pats his head to calm him and makes for the alarm clock across the room, keeping one of her hands skimming along the wall.

She's an hour early. _Brilliant. That's one lost hour of sleep I won't get back._

Bodhi huffs and presses his nose into the back of her knee as she pauses, staring uncertainly at the doorway across the open expanse of the apartment. As if to confirm her worry, the pounding in her skull intensifies and the world dims. She swallows involuntarily and her throat rejects her command, forcing the saliva back into her mouth along with something far less pleasant. Clamping her teeth shut, she stumbles for the bathroom, barely making it in time and wrenching the toilet set up before vomiting.

The acid burns her tongue, her throat. The dry cracks of her lips also sting. She grips at the lip of the toilet to keep her balance and tries to force the muscles of her diaphragm to relax, but she continues to dry heave until her body finally eases. Shivering uncontrollably, she wipes the cold, clammy sweat from her forehead and sits back on the edge of her tub. It's an old fashioned, rusty piece of junk, the claw feet an ugly black-green instead of their once shiny gold finish. Calcium and filth stains circle the inside porcelain and the flimsy chain which should possess a stopper for the bath has long since disappeared.

_At least it has a shower head._

Bodhi walks up and lays his chin on her thigh, doleful brown eyes looking up at her.

She leans forward, pressing her face into his sable fur. "I'm okay." she whispers. A lie, of course, but one that will have to do.

Moving cautiously, she takes a quick shower, electing not to wash her hair and ties it up into three messy buns instead. Bodhi watches diligently as she creeps around the apartment getting ready, her socks mismatched and a toothbrush hanging from her mouth. Toothpaste dribbles down her chin and she wipes it off with the sleeve of her sweater, forgetting that she's wearing faded navy. She glares down at the flaking white smear with contempt before rasping it against her pants.

The chill from outside seeps in through the large windows, giving her migraine some needed relief. She lingers at them for a while, staring down on the empty street below. Over the counter drugs never worked on her headaches. Though far and in-between, they were always intense, always long-lasting, but she'd grown used to operating around them. Pain is pain, nothing more, nothing less.

At least she has a roof over her head and she lives on her own without issue from anyone else... aside from her boss. A much better place than where she started. In time, she will be independent, no strings, no boss. Just her and Bodhi. _Patience._

Memories of her first teen years suddenly resurface and she bites her tongue. If Niima Children's Center, or Niima as it's also known, was anything it was the floor you couldn't fall below. Foster homes were either false dreams or fatal nightmares, parents who turned out even more damaged than you, or nefarious partners looking to cash in on the flesh trade. Niima was another animal altogether. Some would argue a more toxic animal and she wouldn't disagree.

The environment of Niima left no room for the daunted, either you fought and gained scars, or you lost and gained scars. No matter the ending, you were in for a confrontation, one way or another. She'd had long hair before her first round at Niima. She'd cut it her second night in. A hard lesson learned.

.

 

****

**.**

"Rey." Plutt greets her at the entry. "You're late."

She meets his stare head on. "Apologies. It won't happen again."

He steps closer, his quivering jowls making her insides twist with revulsion. "It better not." He pauses, looking hard at her. "You might be my best worker, but how many other starving children need a job, a place to live, I wonder."

Rey nods curtly once and slips passed him, not needing to be told twice. Regardless of the woman aboard her 8:00 train whose water had broke, her tardiness falls on her alone. Why on earth would a pregnant woman be traveling the night trains, anyway? An irrelevant question, really. Sometimes, one has no other choice.

"Rey!" a voice hisses from between a pair of scrap racks ahead of her.

She stops, attempting a smile. "Rose."

"You look like shit." Rose remarks bluntly. "Should I even ask why you're late?"

Rey shrugs, whispering. "You don't wanna know."

Rose studies her, eyes sharpening. "Are you okay?"

"Just a headache. Nothing major." Her assurance sounds as weak as she feels, but she turns and continues into the back of the shop, the loud noises and lights doing little to appease her throbbing skull.

Unkar Plutt runs several not-too-legal business ventures, this chop shop being one of them. It sits along the harbor at the south side of the city nestled within a dilapidated horde of other abandoned warehouses—well, mostly abandoned. Save for the drug smuggling. Plenty of stolen merchandise runs through this place, but mostly cars, expensive cars. Some cars are broken down, others built up, most are shipped as is to clients overseas.

Rey and Rose do the breaking down or building up gig. Mechanic work, in Rey's opinion, is the pleasant job in this trade. No extra hassle with theft, or dealing with unsavory characters. Just sleek chassis, busted V-type engines, or worn brake pads. Nothing fancy. Most of her work clothes are stained with grease or engine oil, which basically means all her clothes. She'd wondered the glitzier side of the city once, watching the glamorous women and men in loud suits with cigars in their mouths smiling. She hadn't felt spite for them like she thought she would, just a distant sadness, a longing.

_It would be nice to walk without a care like that. To just be._

Some of the other workers greet her, but Rey scarcely acknowledges them, caring little tonight if they are offended. She'll deal with it another night.

Rose hurries up beside her and they slide under their allotted tasks and begin. Tools boxes lie open and various wrenches or screw drivers are scattered over the floor, something Rey has always found tediously annoying, but she remains focused on her work. Whoever had owned this hotrod had worn the brake pads to the bone. The brake rotors themselves are cracked, too. They apparently played at being a drag racer when, in reality, they didn't know the first thing about racing, or cars for that matter.

Rey rolls her eyes and wipes sweat from her forehead. Plutt won't be happy that he has to replace the rotors. He'd expected to get this car on freighter last night.

"You ready for tomorrow?" Rose asks from beneath the car beside hers.

Rey smiles for the first time tonight, a real smile. "Of course."

"Good." Rose is, too. Rey can hear it in her voice. "There's this new club, Heaven's Night."

"The strip joint?" Rey blurts incredulously.

"It's not a strip joint." Rose argues.

"It's in the seedier part of town." Rey fires back. "Playing it a little on the dangerous side, are we?"

An impatient huff. "Paige knows a bouncer who works there. Says it's a fun place. Stop being such a killjoy."

"Kill and joy should never go together." Rey drawls, the dull thump of her head making her words come out harsher than she intends. "Sorry." she mumbles.

"You sure you're okay?" Rose presses.

"Yeah." Rey sighs. "Tomorrow night will be great."

They continue on in companionable silence as the hammering, screeching sounds of the shop blare on. A few hours later, they are outside along the dock on break. Rose munches contentedly at a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while Rey sits with her legs dangling over the pier, head angled up to the sky. She can see a couple stars tonight. It's nice and the breeze is chilly on her hot skin.

A distant pang suddenly echoes in her heart and she tucks her lip between her teeth, not exactly sure of its origin, but it lingers. _Those stars..._

"You should really slow down, you know." Rose pipes up between her ravenous nibbling.

"I'm fine." Rey bristles. _So much for companionable silence._

"I'm just saying for tonight." She explains. "You don't have to prove that you can work while you're like this. No one is questioning that you can."

Rey doesn't answer, instead getting to her feet and walking back into the shop. Rose calls after her, though she’s too angry to have civil discussion. People questioning her abilities always makes her overreact. It’s best she just walks away.

Plutt’s wide body abruptly appears in the entryway. Without looking up, she attempts to step passed him, but he moves with her. She tries a third time. Fails.

“Go home.” he rumbles bitterly.

Rey finally glares up into his eyes, defiant. “What?”

“I said, go home.” He repeats, wide mouth parted over obnoxious teeth.

“I have to get back to work.” Rey tries to slip passed him a fourth time, but he grabs her arm.

“You will work tomorrow. You take the rest of the night off.”

She bites her tongue, blood boiling. Tomorrow is her day off, the first one she’s had since she started this job. It's a night out with her friends, regardless if she thinks going to a club in a seedier part of town is foolish. It's one night where she can simply _be_ for a while.

“I work tonight. I’m off tomorrow.” Rey challenges, her voice low and brimming with ire.

Plutt’s fingers tighten around her arm. "You will go home, rest and come back tomorrow night. Or you will find yourself without a job and without a place to stay."

Humiliation burns into her cheeks. _Manipulative fuck!_ She is not weak. She can handle herself. _It's just a migraine!_ But his expression brooks no argument as he turns away and disappears back into his office. Rey drops her gaze to the floor, feeling exposed and raw. Things like this strike a personal chord in her, a chord she prefers to keep hidden, safely wrapped away in her subconscious.

_She is not weak._

"He's right." Rose says from behind her. "You should go home."

Rey scoffs. "Don't act dumb. You’re smarter than that. He’s playing games. He’s only doing this to make things worse."

“That may be true, but he’s still right. You go home and rest. Work tomorrow.”

Rey shakes her head tiredly. “Tomorrow was supposed to be—

“I know.” Rose wraps an arm around her shoulders. "Soon, Paige and I will have enough money to buy a two bedroom apartment and you and I will share a room, just like we've talked about. You’ll find a better job, too."

She nods tacitly. "But until then I have to make this work."

Rose departs back into the shop leaving Rey to herself. She might not admit it, but this upsets Rose equally if not more. Rose has been planning this event for weeks and Rey had been tentative to even ask Plutt for the night off.

Others in the shop have already noticed the difference in attitude Plutt shows her… and her alone. Tension coils around her bones like thorny vines and she exhales a hard breath. After tonight, not only will she look weak to her coworkers, but Plutt’s game of favorites is palpable now. Everyone will know.

And likely start nasty rumors, unless such things already churn around the rumor mill.

What’s worse, Plutt started her out at higher pay than normal. She honestly doubts it's only because he finds her physically attractive. Most in power like to make life a living hell for those beneath them… and they can get creative.

_Sick fucker._

 

.

 

****

**.**

_And if the goddamn train isn’t late, too!_ If it isn't one thing, it's another. She bites furiously at her lip, trying to burn holes into the ground with her eyes. Can fate get any worse for her tonight?

Something tells her it can.

_Morbid..._

She immediately quells the thought and refocuses on twiddling her thumbs, rotating them faster and faster in circles until the ball of energy inside her binds so tight she can hardly stand it.

She stops only to check her wristwatch again. Exactly thirty-seven minutes and fourteen seconds behind. Her eyes linger a moment on its cracked face. It still works. After all this ragged timepiece has seen, its still as precise as the day she'd found it.

Curiously, she has never been able to bring herself to get rid of it. It still ticks. She can appreciate that.

Clouds fester above ground, swelling in from the south. Strong weather blowing off the gulf always makes for unrelenting lightning storms, the rain lasting for days at a time. She’d noticed them gathering while sitting with Rose on the dock.

By now, all the stars are obscured from view.

Rey breathes in the moisture of the air and the dank underground stink of the subway as she stands from the metal bench she currently occupies to stretch before sitting down again. She doesn’t twiddle her thumbs this time, staring out at the crowd as more come pouring in from the world above.

People with dreary faces muddle past her, aiming to get on her train first before all the others. _Like cattle in a slaughter chute_ , she muses and quickly blames her ghoulish humor on her migraine. In truth, the whole world tonight dons a monochrome finish, no color, just sharp light and dipping shadows. She sometimes can’t tell which is worse.

_Color or no color?_

Near the edge of the platform, standing not far from an emergency exit, a quiet couple catches her attention. Their dress is painfully mundane. The man, very close to her own age, surveys the occupants of the station, searching for someone. The young woman leans against a pillar, eyes directed at the floor, but Rey can tell that she knows everything happening around her.    

They are too aware compared to the other faces. She can see it in the hard lines of concentration angling their features.

As if sensing her, the girl’s head snaps in her direction and Rey finds herself momentarily puzzled. The eyes—they stand out like two smoldering coins, vivid and etched sharply within her pixie face.

 _‘Who are you looking for?’_ Rey wonders.

The girl breaks eye contact and leans close to her partner, whispering to him. They circle around the pillar as Rey’s eyes follow after them. Her gaze sweeps to the other side of the pillar, expecting to see them, but they are gone. She blinks, scanning the other blank faces for that shock of hard gold and blonde hair.

She sighs after a moment, mumbling to herself. “Talk about Houdini.”

No way someone could just up and disappear like that. She’d simply missed them is all. They used the opportunity of a big crowd to disappear. _I’ve used that trick more than once in the past, myself._

She glances down at her beat-up sneakers, the throbbing of her skull mounting again, reminding her that she should not be in such a bright setting. Rising to her feet, she walks out of the glaze to an area near where the couple had stood. The overhead light for this sector is out, flickering seldomly. To be honest, she’s surprised any of these old lights still burn. Most of the fixtures are considered vintage, or downright ancient.

Suddenly, the ear splitting screech of her train slices through the tube and she grits her teeth at the sound. _About time, though._ People bustle about, occasionally shoving one another to be the first through the doors and Rey shakes her head. At the very least, she will go back to her air mattress with Bodhi and suffer there instead of here.

But before she can make it to the open doors, something solid bumps into her, knocking her off balance. She gasps, whirling to find a broad, black-clad chest. Just as her eyes reach the offender’s chin, another set of shoulders brush past her, effectively spinning her a full one-eighty into the stone pillar.

She grips at the concrete as her head rolls unsteadily, the awful pulse of her skull seeming to slosh and tumble like an ocean, and thunder suddenly roars from above, vibrating the tunnel as if drum. She clamps her eyes shut as her teeth rattle and pushes herself off the pillar.

People are already flocking through the doors. She’ll need to hurry, but her attention seems aimed at something else, something in front of her and to her left. She finds it, a tall shade of black rippling into the crowd. He turns, wide shoulders brushing others aside, and she halts, all at once ensnared by a pair whiskey dark eyes. His expression is cold, nose long and wide lips set in a static frown. He stares right into her.

 _Dangerous_ is the first word that comes to mind. _Unpleasant_ is another.

She notes several other blurs of shadow out of her periphery when the man’s electric eyes shift to something behind her. She frowns, pivoting to find what draws his attention.

“Rebels!” someone shouts.

And the world is swiftly transformed into a chaos of screams and thunder, or she first assumes it’s thunder. People scatter in all directions as the mass of black-clad figures move on her. _It isn’t thunder; it’s gunfire,_ her mind whispers numbly, body frozen in shock. _And they are coming at me._

Without warning, a pair of strong arms yank her backwards and she reacts on instinct, wriggling her body down and biting into the exposed forearm.

A hiss cuts passed her shoulder. “I’m not gonna to hurt you!”

More rapid gunfire reverberates through the tunnel, slamming into her senses, making her head spin. Rey struggles, but her captor’s grip is unrelenting. Bullets penetrate the pillar next to them and she is quickly wrenched away from the flying chips of concrete.

She cranes her neck around to see that her captor is none other than the man she’d spotted earlier, dark, warm skin and square jaw, attire painfully mundane. _Where is his partner?_

As she opens her mouth to speak a bullet clips her arm and she cries out in surprise. Her captor quickly drags her behind a set of vending machines and rips aside the shoulder of her jacket, assessing her injury.

“It’s only a flesh wound.” he pants, dark eyes glittering with adrenaline. “The bullet only grazed the skin. You’re gonna be okay.”

Rey stares up at him, bewildered. “What?”

This must be some kind of turf war between rival gangs and somehow it had to happen right here, right now, on this very platform… with her here. Tonight. _Lovely._

“Just stay low.” he commands and draws his own weapon.

“Finn!” a distant voice yells.

“Where’s Jessika?” the man—Finn—yells back.

His partner, the blonde girl, darts over to them and crouches low at Rey’s opposite side. “You need to get out of here!” she snarls.

“I’m not leaving—

“Don’t argue. Get out of here! Now!”

Finn fires at someone approaching, the hate in his face terrifying. “No.”

“Fuck!” the girl blasts off several rounds herself. “Stop being a fucking hero and get that piece back to Leia! We’ve come too far!”

“Kay, I’ve got a plan!”

“It better involve you leaving!”

“Just trust me!” he snaps and glances over to Rey.

She stares at him with wide eyes as he pulls something from his jacket pocket and stuffs it into hers. It feels heavy, whatever it is.

“Keep it safe for me.”

Rey scowls distrustfully. “Why should I?”

“Cause you owe me one for saving you.” he smirks.

“Finn what are you—

A rush of black suddenly sweeps in from the right and Kay is jerking in front of Rey, firing her weapon with a menacing grimace. The shadow spins like liquid and moves on Finn in an instant. The two crash onto the tracks, dragging Rey with them.

She only has a split second curl her arms around her head before she slams into the metal framework. Pain barks up her side from her hip and her consciousness floats, faraway for one harrowing moment, and then she is ripped back down to reality and the scuffling men in front of her.

They move like water, twisting and snarling. Two rabid dogs aiming for one another’s throats. She can see that the attacker is the man who bumped into her, the tall curious shade with electric eyes. Their guns are gone, knocked out of each other’s hands in the fray. More bullets echo overhead and Rey carefully pushes herself up onto her knees, swallowing back nausea.   

She needs to get out of here. _Fast._

The man lands a clean uppercut and Finn is flying backwards, landing in an unconscious heap behind her. Fear seizes her heart and she stands unsteadily, eyes darting in all directions, seeking an escape as the man advances on her, features betraying an inquisitiveness, a hesitation. His body seems to take up the tunnel, growing in size with the shadows.

“You’re the contact.” he muses, not quite a statement, nor a question.

Rey trembles uncontrollably. “I don’t know who you are, or who he is! I’m not a part of anything! I’m no one. I just…” her chest rises erratically as he towers over her.

Such vivid eyes, like the girl’s, but deeper, a devil’s gold, and his presence is utterly overpowering, dragging her in with all the crushing gravity of a star. She attempts to breathe, yet his musk surrounds her, an exotic mix of heat, dark earth and leather.

Rey swallows, throat dry and heart hammering. “I’m no one.” she repeats in a whisper.

“Somehow, I doubt that.” he murmurs as he leans closer, nostrils flaring, breaths sharpening.

She tries to stand defiant, face hard and teeth bared. A voice yells through the fog of her brain, reminding her to run, but she cannot move, cannot see past this hulking figure eclipsing the light. His lips twitch and the look of his eyes summons a strange feeling deep within her gut, an anticipation for… _something_.

“Who are—

He never gets to finish. From behind them, a bone-shattering roar explodes through the tunnel and Rey jerks around to find Finn rising up, mouth agape, skin seeming to crawl… and he _keeps_ rising. The muscles of his forearms bulge and writhe as his jaw protrudes, _pushing_ against his skin, stretching it into something like a snout.

 _What the fuck?!_ Her hand goes to her mouth. She’s dreaming. She’s fucking dreaming. _This can’t be real!_

Fur sprouts along his flesh and his ears grow to tuft points at the crown of of his head. His clothes rip and fall away, leaving only muscle, teeth and claws. Rey’s heart stops, flatlining in her chest, and she thinks for a moment that she has indeed died… and gone straight to _hell_.

“This isn’t real.” she utters dumbly. “Can’t be…”

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **PLEASE REMEMBER TO REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW!  
> ** **CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM IS WELCOME!**  
>    
> 


	3. Hazel Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N:** So sorry for the late update! Made up for it with the length of this chapter. ;) Also, I just finished one of my first multi-chapter Reylo projects! \o/ Now I can focus on this project and [Spellbound](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14714675/chapters/34007672), another Reylo AU based on The Last Unicorn with a very dark, mature twist.
> 
>  **SONG INSPIRATION:**[Cold - Static X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNohq2JJMQY) & [A Forest - The Cure](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGT4V6JmINA)
> 
>  **WARNINGS:** depictions of violence, physical abuse and emotional humiliation, blood, cursing, etc.

 

* * *

.

 _"There are some eyes that can eat you._ _"_

\- The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories / Angela Carter

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* * *

 

 

 

In the coming months, Kylo will look back on this moment as the moment everything changed.

The idea that some nondescript girl—some curious little urchin likely from the harbor by the smell of salt on her skin with tired, frizzy hair, bruises under her eyes and a lack of nutrition in her cheeks—could snatch away his chance of vengeance against Skywalker had never crossed his mind. That  _anyone_  could steal it from him seemed utterly preposterous.

He will look back upon this moment with both loathing and wonder.

Her fragrance settles upon him as he approaches, a light wash of something spicy and floral.  _Like summer._

"Who are—

Suddenly, a rending howl tears his attention away and he watches with grim fascination as the traitor stands at his full height, his body twisting with the change, defying the sway of the moon—s _he won't be full another week yet._ Kylo grins as pride swells in his chest, poisoned surely by their shared enmity, but pride nonetheless. Of all his knights, only Finn had ever mastered the ability to call the wolf at will.

Such a shame.  _Traitor._

Out of his periphery he sees the girl stumble away, scrambling up onto the platform and disappearing in a blur of shapeless brown as shots fill the air from above.  _No!_  his mind snarls and he turns, meaning to pursue her—the mere idea of it humming seductively along his bones, tempting the wolf inside him—but the traitor pounces at that exact moment, aiming a wide slashing arc of claws at his neck. Kylo dodges it with ease, twisting to the side and bounding back, feet landing soundlessly on the tracks.

 _Halfhearted_ , Kylo muses,  _a challenge to shift._ He desires Kylo to become wolf, to meet him as a fellow combatant. He scoffs; such an honor would never be afforded to a traitor, let alone a  _pup_.

Moving toward Kylo again Finn bares his fangs, eyes brimming and massive body rolling with muscle. Kylo grins a full flash of teeth, contorting his long features, lips drawn to the edges of his face and dark gaze glittering. They circle one another. Once. Twice. Three times.

A scream abruptly explodes from overhead— _one of Hux's men_. Kylo sneers at that.

"After them!" someone yells.

"We have to get out of here!" another counters.  _Ruelle_.

Kylo listens carefully. Then, he hears it in the far distance, faint against the storm.  _Police sirens._ Tonight has already become quite the spectacle and neither Snoke nor he would want any more attention than what Hux's men have accumulated. Thankfully, his knights have fled. He can end this quickly and without fanfare.

Finn growls impatiently and rockets toward him with renewed fervor, more vicious and this time actually aiming to tear out his jugular. The pup's lack of restraint is one thing both he and Kylo share, and Kylo recognizes it before Finn even moves. He sidesteps him, drawing a hidden dagger at his belt and pistoning out his arm in a violent slash along the werewolf's belly in one fluid motion.

The traitor cries out and withdraws, a fresh streak of dark blood weeping from a gruesome smile above his navel.

Kylo flashes the knife at him. It is a blasphemous weapon to his kind, but what is he if not wicked.

The blade winks in the low light as if tasting the air around it with greedy abandon and Finn crouches low, his chest brushing the metal skeleton of the railway and his jowls shivering with a snarl of outrage. Drool glistens from his chin, a froth of white, and Kylo angles the blade along the length of his forearm as the ground vibrates beneath them with the storm.

The lights go out. And stay out.

The sirens grow louder.

Faint shapes of geometric edges outline the gloom. Kylo keeps his eyes on his adversary. Humans could never see in this kind of darkness, and though a werewolf's eyes are not as sharp as a vampire's, darkness is still their element. He notes how the traitor's shoulders rise and fall with his breathing, how the slick of blood on his abdomen looks a shade deeper than black and how the creature's clawed hands clench, unclench, clench.

Kylo then notes the conspicuous change in the traitor's panting breaths. They become shallower, more rapid; no longer deep and focused.

_He means to run._

With a speed that surprises Kylo himself, Finn about-faces and hurtles down the tunnel, his dark shape melting into the stygian blackness. Bile instantly rises in Kylo's throat, his anger singing at his nerve-endings and his fists trembling.  _Not only is he a traitor, but also a coward!_  Kylo had never taught his knights to behave with such a shameful display of weakness.  _Never._  Kylo's anger swells rapidly into an electric maelstrom of wrath and he surges after him, fingers strangling the hilt of his dagger and a grimace distorting his face.

It eats away at him in a way it shouldn't. This werewolf that had once been one of his knights... ran away.

The metal clangs under his boots as the tunnel curls in a slow, wide arc, the double sets of tracks dyed red in the faint back-up lights and the sound of the sirens finally reaching the station. They fade as he follows the traitor deeper down the tunnel, the heavy musk of his fur making him easy to track. Vampires may have the advantage of superior eye-sight, but werewolves are unrivaled when it comes to their sense of smell. And being supernatural in addition—well, let's just say it adds extra icing to the cake.

Finn suddenly disappears from in front of him, his silhouette there and then gone.

Kylo pushes forward, his long legs gaining momentum as he cuts around the bend and leaps over to the opposite set of tracks. He comes to a sharp halt when he reaches the last point he saw Finn and sniffs eagerly at the air. To his left is a small domed alcove with a heavy metal door leading to one of the escape shafts up to the surface in case of emergency, but even in this low light, Kylo can see that it remains untouched.

The traitor's scent is stronger, too.  _He's still_ right _here._

As if to punctuate Kylo's thoughts a hulking body collides into him, nearly knocking him off his feet if not for the warning chill that surges up his spine and the instinctive dip of his shoulder, the angled thrust of his blade—centuries worth of sword training honed into his muscle memory like beautiful, ugly clockwork. The precision of his strike rings in his ears as the traitor howls in agony and collapses to the ground, the hilt of the silver dagger protruding from his side a few inches below his armpit. A nasty wound; not a fatal one, but...

 _Such a shame_ , he thinks once more, the vestiges of real contrition whispering through the hollows in his chest.

This is a man who had once been a boy, a boy who had suffered Kylo's bite and became a fellow knight within his circle.  _A comrade._  The reminder burns like acid in Kylo's throat and he grits his teeth, towering over Finn, meaning to kill him and simply take the object hidden in his clutches.

And then, Kylo can finally,  _finally_  pursue his vengeance.

_Yet._

He hesitates, glaring down at the bleeding mess before him. Not exactly sure what possesses him to do so, he steps back and softens his stance. He cannot kill Finn, not this way and not tonight. Perhaps when they meet again in battle, but not tonight.

_Yes, he is a traitor, but he was also a comrade. Once..._

The silence stretches like a band around them as sounds of the city above beat like an orchestra of drums.

"Give it to me and I will let you live." Kylo offers at last, his expression cold steel as his voice echoes off the walls with a strange and almost spiritual resonance.

Finn huffs a snarl of bitter laughter, the sound edging out of his snout like the sound of a gutting saw.

"It's more than you deserve, traitor!" Kylo barks callously.

 _Likely so_ , Finn's eyes tell him.  _Definitely so._

And it's that lack of luster in his eyes that finally gives it away, the resignation in his stare. It all clicks, like a violent clash of broken glass in Kylo's mind, a cacophony of stained brilliance that makes his nose throb with pain and his mind scream in understanding. Everything Finn has done was to distract him— _distract him from what?_  No, not what; who.

_Her._

The realization drops through Kylo's gut like a stone, dragging down his innards with a nauseating twist and he glares at Finn in shocked amazement. His once-apprentice looks back up at him with equal and opposite resolve, the choppy hitch of laughter tainting his lips again. Of course, the girl has it. Of course, Hux's men are chasing after Connix and the others and  _not her_ , the thought of the object being anywhere but in the hands of the Resistance not having ever crossed their minds.

And the worst, part? Kylo had wanted to pursue her. Something had drawn him like a moth to a flame, but he let her go. He should have seen the truth, he should have known. Humiliation scalds him like boiling water and he moves on Finn without a second thought, aiming to tear out his—

The blaring cry of an oncoming train blasts into their ears and a beam of light floods the tunnel, blinding them. Kylo shields his vision against the light and against the pain as the train blares a second time, while Finn hurriedly lumbers to his feet, Kylo realizing only too late what he intends to do. The train hastens closer and before Kylo can reach him, Finn leaps out in front of the speeding locomotive, disappearing onto the other side of the track as the machine barrels passed.

Kylo launches himself speedily in the opposite direction out of the train's path, the instinct the survive momentarily overriding his rage. By the time the final car passes, Kylo knows Finn is gone.

He follows after his scent in a rampage of violence, tracking him down into the sewers below the city, but Kylo loses him not long after that. He had trained his once-apprentice too well in the art of disappearing and, if nothing else, Finn had been the best at covering his tracks. Kylo had almost caught himself missing it over the last hundred years... until now.

A couple hours later he emerges to the surface, empty-handed, stinking and thoroughly livid.

**_._ **

**.**

 

The mission had failed. Failed. FAILED.

He rips into the mansion with no lack of ceremony, spine rigid and face set in stone, shoving past onlookers with the unmistakable rage of a man who has—

"Failed!" Snoke roars, slapping Kylo brutally across the cheek.

The impact echoes throughout the chamber and sends him sprawling backwards. He lands with an indignant thump on the throne room floor and slides several feet more. Through the haze of humiliation, he attempts to right himself, cheeks flaming as he gets back to his bent knee. Hux peers down at him with the ghost of a leer now that Kylo is beside him, not in front, and he does everything in his power to keep the wolf howling in his chest at bay.

This was Hux's fault after all. He might not have planned this outcome, but he's an opportunist. One without morals, without code or any semblance of honor, but he is an opportunist all the same.

Kylo bites the dribble of blood off his lip and kneels statue still, the tendons of his jaw rigid.

Snoke's arctic eyes pierce into him, weighing his every thought. "Leave us." the gnarled white hand motions to Hux.

Hux obeys, sparing a fleeting smirk in Kylo's direction before disappearing smoothly out the chamber.

A long silence.

Kylo breathes, closing his eyes for the briefest moment to compose himself.

Then, the click of a tongue in the silence, thoughtful, almost impassive.

"Tell me, Kylo Ren," Snoke begins, his basso voice polite and conversational once again. "Why are you here?"

Kylo swallows, considering his response. "Because it's where I belong."

The answer is simple, inelegant, completely naked in its honesty; and Kylo knows its no real answer at all.  _Not really._

Snoke watches him for a long time, face cast in shadow, but his eyes—they gleam. "Is it." he ponders aloud, a rhetorical statement.

Kylo knows better than to reply to what is not a question. He keeps his gaze focused hard on the floor, the coppery taste of blood still on his tongue.

Snoke eventually sighs and approaches him, arms sweeping outward in a manner of presentation. "So much potential, so much power." He towers above Kylo, stopping only inches from him. "How many centuries have you prospered under my tutelage, Kylo Ren?"

"Six." That answer is straightforward.

"Yes. Six hundred years of my wisdom..." his pause orders Kylo to look up at him, to peer deeply into his eyes, and Snoke's voice goes flat," that you have  _squandered_."

Kylo's heart twists. "Supreme leader I—

"I'd thought you would be the one to change this war. Alas, you're nothing more than a child."

The statement skewers his chest like a javelin and his already clenched fists tremble uncontrollably. He's rising before his consciousness can catch up, the sleeping part of him desiring to tear, to kill, and a set of venomous claws abruptly plunge into his shoulder, wrenching a howl from his throat so violently he tastes blood.  _I bit my tongue,_  he thinks offhandedly. The claws stir darkness under Kylo's skin like a swarm of skittering insects, crawling, crawling...  _crawling._

"You have too much of your father's heart in you, young Solo." Snoke's grip tightens and Kylo stifles a shameful whimper. "I am afraid it is a weakness I cannot cure. I'd had such hopes for you." his tone weighs heavy with disappointment.

A memory flashes behind Kylo's eyes, a face he has spent centuries trying to forget. He shoves at it violently, but it refuses to yield, maliciously taunting him with that devil-may-care grin. Snoke has not mentioned his father since that fateful night so long ago. Kylo himself has not openly thought of him in decades, at least not on purpose. Doing so did damning things to his emotions— _like now_ — and Snoke's words... Snoke's words burrow into his meticulous facade, snapping invisible seams behind his ribs.

The mask of indifference finally crumbles. "I've given everything I have to you." Kylo utters nakedly as heat gathers behind his eyes, his chest choking with anguish, and he does everything in his power to swallow them back down, to bury them deep in the pit of his stomach.

Let them eat away his insides, but by the gods, don't let them brand his cheeks.

_Please._

"What is it you've given me?" Snoke intones quietly. "What is it exactly you've given me, Ben Solo, other than a  _child_  who can do no more than fail?"

They fall, hot and humiliating down his face. After everything, after all he has sacrificed, all the anguish he has endured, turning away from all he ever knew...

Snoke reaches forward with his free hand, a single sharpened nail following the trail down Kylo's cheek, drawing blood. "Let the salt of these useless things remind you."

Kylo attempts to swallow the lump sticking in his throat. Fails.

"Go now." Snoke drawls. "I cannot stand another moment of you in my presence."

He disengages his hand from Kylo's shoulder with a painful jerk and Kylo crumples to the ground, his hot cheek pressed to the icy floor. The moisture of his breath shivers across the surface, turning it a misty gray.

"And tell Hux to pursue this... girl." Snoke calls from the shadows. "I leave it in his hands for now."

Kylo peels himself off the floor and leaves the chamber in a rush, fury burning at his insides. He does not speak to his pack. He does not speak to Hux. He leaves the mansion with a single purpose.

 _He_  will find the girl.

**_._ **

****

**.**

He pulls his hood farther over his head as he walks along the docks, the fresh set of clothes a damn sight better than his previous ensemble. Of course, trudging through the sewers and being at the mercy of Snoke's unforgiving claws will do that every time. He huffs at the image of his favorite jacket, stinking, stained with blood and nasty tears along the fabric from Snoke's grip.  _Ruined._

The fucking thing had easily cost a thousand dollars.  _Minimum._  Vintage, double breasted shearling sheepskin; ruined. He shoves his hands deeper into the hoodie's pockets with moody sharpness and glares out across the dancing waters of the harbor. Cargo ships enter and exit as reflections of the filthy golden lights break along the surface like thousands of hazy eyes winking sleepily.

_Ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time._

Kylo smirks. A quote from the infamous H. P. Lovecraft. A true statement, as well; but then again, those who delve too deeply into the darkness' shadow often do speak truth, even as the shadow eats their sanity alive. Does he himself not know these things.

He pushes the thought away and halts to taste the air. Her scent is thin, nearly drown out by an overabundance of raw fish, salt, diesel fuel and the conspicuous richness of death somewhere under the warehouses lining the harbor. Killing happens often here. Easy for the ocean to sweep away the body and let the swimming things eat the evidence.

He continues walking. In the distance, a cargo ship sounds its horn.

The girl's memory creeps up unexpectedly into his mind and he is perplexed again. She stares at him with her frizzy halo of chestnut hair, shoulders engulfed in an over-sized coat, lips parted and her eyes—they were a curious tinge of ochre. N _o, gray_.

He glances out across the water, remembering how she had gaped up at him, wide and unfurled, like a naked flower.

_Hazel, her eyes were hazel. A greenish hazel that sometimes resembles storms and gray thunder in the right light._

Kylo draws in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. The lingering drizzle of rain makes it impossible to see the moon, but the low light in the eastern sky tells him another hour or two and the sun will crest the horizon.

He follows the scant ribbon of her scent to a large warehouse modeled into what appears to be a chop shop. He enters it.

Sounds assail him, painful white light, bodies moving, dank sweat so thick in the air it taints his taste buds. Glancing around, he finds a grossly porcine man sitting in the doorway of a small room— _his office_ , Kylo surmises—the rolling stool he sits upon sagging beneath his weight with an impressive pair of drooping jowls. Was _the man even born having a neck?_

_Not likely._

His head turns in Kylo's direction. "Who the hell are you? What the fuck you want?"

Movement out of his periphery tells Kylo that the man owns a troop of thugs.  _Unsurprising._

Ignoring the the man's rude tone—at the moment, anyway—Kylo asks in an even voice. "Do you have a girl working here? Brunette, about five-foot-six, has a ratty brown—

"What do you want with her?" The man mutters, already appearing bored. His thugs relax a bit.

"That's none of your concern." Kylo snaps.  _So much for playing it neutral_ , he grumbles to himself.

The thugs reinstitute their previous tension, one of the men meaning to approach Kylo. He holds a weapon behind his back, a riot baton. Kylo grins knowingly at him and a flicker of unease passes over his eyes.

The owner rises from his stool with a metal squawk, meaty arms crossing over his chest. "She is my best mechanic, so yes, I would say it's my concern."

Kylo assesses the other men, sizing them up, and then he's moving, a streak of black as his last vestige of patience goes out with the cry of surprise from the owner. The first underling sails out the door, breaking it off its hinges. The second—the man with the riot baton—swings his weapon viciously, but Kylo is faster, dodging and snapping his neck with a savage crack, then grabbing the riot baton and taking out the final three.

He turns to the owner who has yet to draw his gun tucked at his back. Kylo is instantly upon him, cinching down on his wrist in a bone-crushing grip before he can pull the pistol from the crack of his ass. "That won't be necessary." Kylo says silkily, tightening his hold.

"What do you want?" the man groans, fear spiking in the obscene odor of his sweat.

"The girl. Her name. Where she lives."

"I'm not gonna—

Kylo gives a more convincing twist and the man bites back a cry. "You're in no position to dictate anything to me. Now, I want her name."

All eyes are on them now, all work in the shop ceased.

"Rey." the owner huffs out.

"Rey what?"

"Rey, Queen of England. Who the fuck cares?! She's an orphan!"

 _No family._  He files that away for later. "Where does she live?"

"Daisy Villa Apartments." he replies, spittle shining on his lips. "I own it. It's downtown. 2nd street. You can—

"I know it." Kylo cuts him off.

_So the girl lives in one of the dodgiest neighborhoods in the city._

"Are you..." the man hesitates, body shuddering with pain.

"What?" Kylo snarls.

"Are you with the other one?"

Kylo jerks him closer, eyes blazing. "Other one?"

"Short, blonde, said she wanted to talk to me about a possible job opening. Said Rey told her about it or something." He grimaces and drags in a labored breath. "Should have known the bitch was lying."

 _Connix. It had to be Connix._  "When did she come here?"

"Who the fuck are you guys and why are you so interested in a street ra—

"When?!" Kylo snaps, wresting the man's arm so hard there is a very audible pop. Not quite a break, but close.

He shouts, his low voice choppy and ragged. "Half and hour ago! Give or take."

_Shit!_

"She asked where Rey lived. You told her." It isn't a question.

"Yes." the man half grumbles, half whines.

Kylo releases him with a violent thrust, causing another pop in the man's wrist and he slinks away miserably, nursing his injured arm. Turning to leave, Kylo pauses, something have caught his eye. A set of eyes among all the others. This set stares a little too long, a little too hard. He glares in their direction, but the owner has already turned, her black ponytail bouncing as she walks away. He notes the faint tendril of her scent in the air, a hint of lemons and worn denim.

Then, he departs for 2nd Street.

**_._ **

****

**.**

A werewolf has been here. Kylo scents the air again warily. The musk is foreign to him. It could be Connix, or another Rebel wolf. Either option is equally damning.

He looks up along the three-story windows. Rey lives on the third floor. Somehow, he simply knows this to be true and it unsettles him. The old walls are dressed with hardened gum, graffiti, a couple busted windows on the first floor and a meager terrace along the third. He marks the silhouette of a dog near the terrace doors, its eyes fixated on him.

 _At least she has a guard_ , Kylo muses, not exactly sure why he feels a sudden pang of...  _jealousy_?

He runs a hand through his hair. The unfortunate reality that he could be too late crosses his mind, though he tamps it down.  _He isn't._ But that dog continues to stare at him, anxious, standing every few seconds, then sitting again.

_She isn't here. Hasn't been here since she left for her work._

He inhales the banquet of smells around him. The girl's scent is definitely present, inlaid into the environment like the grass, or the rank of the apartment dumpster located at the back of the apartment building. A part of this place, but it's not fresh like the unknown musk of the werewolf.

_She didn't come back here._

Momentary relief floods through him. Now, the most important question. "Where did you go?" he wonders aloud.

 _'The best place to hide, kid, is right under their nose,'_ a gruff voice whispers slyly. He instantly wishes it hadn't, the old and festered scar in his heart throbbing. Yet, it speaks a kernel of truth.

"Right under my nose." Kylo murmurs.

An ebony ponytail floats into his mind, bouncing with the rhythm of a walk.  _You..._  he ponders, recalling the one who had paid a little too much attention to his exchange with the chop shop's owner. _You know something._

**_._ **

****

**.**

The ponytail bounces cheerfully with her stride, but there is nothing cheerful about her expression as she exits the shop from a rear entrance and proceeds down one of the docks. Her keen eyes are everywhere, checking every shadow, even the water.

Kylo surveys her from a distance. She enters a storage house at the end of the dock in conspiratorial fashion, opening the door hastily, with a yet another look at her surroundings, then closing it quietly behind her. No lights flick on; the small windows of the building remain dark.

Nothing outside the storage building moves. That's not to say the werewolf isn't somewhere close, or Hux's men for that matter. And Hux's men will probably be expecting him. Snoke won't be too thrilled to hear about his disobedience, but once Kylo brings the object to him Snoke will see reason. He will renounce the things he said and never again mention the name Ben Solo.

Feeling it safe, Kylo creeps out from his hiding place and ghosts across the dock. He picks up a tinge of Gardenia as he approaches the storage house.  _Right under my nose_ , he says to himself, slipping through the door without a sound. He finds the building littered with shelves, shelves atop more shelves. To his immediate left an open square is cut into the flooring and wall where a small boat can be hitched. The place is cramped and reeks of slime, barnacles and mold.

"Rey, you have to tell me something, or I can't help you." a voice hisses.

Kylo quickly ducks behind a set of corner shelves.

"I'm shooting in the dark here." the voice continues. "You show up looking like  _that_  and you won't talk to me. What am I supposed to think?"

"Rose I—

"You can start with why you're bleeding."

 _So the other girl's name is Rose._  Kylo edges closer, though he does not risk a peak around the shelves. Not just yet.

"Look... it's crazy. You won't believe it. Hell, I don't even believe it and I was there. I mean—I saw—I saw this man..." Rey trails off.

"Rey, you have to call the cops, or get help from someone."

"They won't believe me."

Rose makes an exasperated sigh. "Fine. If you aren't going to tell someone at least stay here until I finish out my shift. You will crash at my place and we'll figure something out then, okay?"

"No."

"Rey."

"No." she repeats. "You said it yourself, I've got people looking for me."

"Why do you have to be so diffic—

The door of the storage building suddenly crashes open and three dark shapes rocket passed Kylo.  _Hux's men._  There is a shocked yelp, then a scream.

Kylo abandons concealment and rushes in, finding the two women near the water's edge, detained and struggling. The two vampires holding them are unknown to Kylo, fledglings no doubt, but the third, the one watching him with the silver-studded whip at his belt, Kylo knows well enough. Perhaps not on a personal level—personal level being the receiving end of that whip. If this were the case, the sadistic bastard would have met his death ages ago, but he prefers to pick on the weaker of Kylo's species, so naturally, he has never dared to cross the Master of the Knights of Ren.

It is a rare thing, but, on occasion, Fate has a  _tasteful_ since of irony.

"This doesn't concern you, Master Ren. The supreme leader gave our general strict orders and  _you_  are to return to the Supremacy posthaste." An undercurrent of fear lies beneath his words.

 _Good._  "Craven." Kylo's tone borders on charitable. "I suggest you leave  _posthaste_ and report to your general on your failure to apprehend the girl."

He scoffs, feet shifting. "Your supreme leader has requested your presence. You are to leave the handling of this girl to us."

"Am I?" Kylo tilts his head, flicking his gaze away from Craven.

He focuses on her— _Rey_ —and she stills in her captor's arms at once, hazel eyes settling on Kylo slowly, anxiously. Their spectrum of color is lost in the gloom, but he can see that they have darkened somehow. In fear, or a primal sense of...  _what_ —he does not know, but recognition eventually flickers over her features, a languid blink of lashes against the pallid blue of her cheeks and a parting of lips that sparks an eerily pleasant tingle up Kylo's spine.

He draws a shuddering breath.

"You are to stay out of this, Master Ren!" Craven barks unsteadily as he hand shoots to his belt, the whip tinkling with the movement.

The other two vampires exchange nervous glances.

Kylo squares his shoulders. "Last chance, lieutenant."

A beat of silence.

Then...

All hell breaks lose.

Kylo pounces, Craven frees his whip and a hidden fourth comes up from behind, aiming to strike Kylo over the head. The silver truncheon misses Kylo by millimeters as he crouches low, a step ahead of Craven who is throwing his arm back, his whip coiling like a snake. The braided leather cuts a line straight for Kylo's face and he snatches it in the air, his gloved hand safe from the spiny studs, and then yanks viciously.

Caught off guard, Craven stumbles; however, before Kylo can attack, the fourth kicks him in the back, sending him off balance and careening for the edge of the dock. Craven twists his stance, planting his feet, and pushes Kylo, nearly sending him into the brackish water if not for the rotting piling. Kylo collides into it with a snapping creak, knocking the wind out of him and a snarl tears at his lips. He whirls around, blood-lust singing in his veins.

The fourth has drawn a gun along with his truncheon, but he will not use it, Kylo knows. Snoke would be most displeased with such a development.

Craven has angled himself between Kylo and the two women, while the women themselves are attempting to take advantage of the distraction he's created. Unfortunately though, with little reward. They thrash and buck against their captors, both of them screaming and tearing with their hands, their nails, grabbing at eyes, mouths, anything.

Kylo makes to press forward again when the flicker of metal catches his eye. He watches with delighted fascination as Rey takes a concealed switchblade from her boot and plunges it hilt-deep into her captor's throat. The vampire gasps in pained shock, drawing the attention of the others, and Kylo is already moving. He takes out the fourth with a fluid snap of the neck, twisting so hard he nearly wrenches the head from the vampire's shoulders.

Craven staggers back and lashes out, but Kylo disregards his attack, even as the end of the whip cuts a clean line down his chin. Faster than Craven can recover, Kylo lunges for his throat, ripping out his trachea and driving his fist down the fresh opening to remove his heart. He tosses the organ casually into the sea as Craven falls lifelessly to the floor.

Finally, Kylo turns his attention to the others, though he is not prepared for what happens next.

Rose breaks free in a startling burst of anger and her captor, who is too busy focusing on the struggle between Rey and his partner, misses Rose's own hidden switchblade. She drives it ruthlessly into his heart and the vampire's eyes go wide, amazement wiping all other expression from his face and he collapses, but before his body hits the floor a strangled wail comes from Rey's direction.

The fledgling holds her tightly to him, her head pulled to the side and his lips latched at her throat. Kylo's fists fall dumbly to his sides as he watches fresh blood spill down her clavicle.  _He's bitten her. She's been bitten._  Kylo blinks, unbelieving. She has been  _marked_. The wolf in him growls lowly, a building rumble of thunder in his chest. Red—red is all he sees.

Rose's yell jolts him from his initial shock and he looks just in time to see her throwing herself on them, taking all three of them down into the water. Without a second thought he dives in after Rey, plunging into the icy darkness.

 

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **PLEASE REMEMBER TO REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW!  
> ** **CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM IS WELCOME!**  
>    
> 
> 
> **Extra Notes & Links:**  
>  [Kylo's expensive (now destroyed) trench coat](https://www.cwmalls.com/cwmalls-double-breasted-sheepskin-trench-coat-cw807609.html?gclid=CjwKCAjw9e3YBRBcEiwAzjCJut2RUY7l7I5t1DT9jlu-njxgpaqK7yo4bxqka-5dMiO_UKAIDY5XoRoC_AAQAvD_BwE)  
>  (He should totally get another one, honestly.)


	4. Dangerous Mistake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N:** This project is such an excuse for my 80s Goth obsession, tbh, but thanks so much for all the support! It really helps immensely with inspiration. I've been receiving several comments on some confusion as to Snoke, the First Order and Kylo's position among their faction as a werewolf, so I'll be clearing some of that up this chapter and the next. Also, you won't have to wait that much longer for the smut. Some _major_ teasing in the next few chapters, though, but Rey's a thirsty girl and Kylo ain't much better.  
>     
>  **SONG INSPIRATION:**[Stripped - Depeche Mode](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU8UfYdKHv)
> 
>  **WARNINGS:** Rey in restraints, dark room, profanity, nausea descriptions, panic attacks and mentions of a character watching/liking porn

 

* * *

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 _"Klopf klopf, lass mich rein._  
_Lass mich dein Geheimnis sein."_

\- Labyrinth / Oomph!

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* * *

 

 

 

Sleep clutches at her, holding fast in its embrace as her brain fumbles hazily in the darkened room of her skull. Thoughts flicker like fireflies in the distance, faraway things she cannot process; however, there are things she  _can_  remember, but whether or not these things are real is another matter entirely.

The cold, the liquid gloom... the taste.

_Filthy salt._

Her skin prickles at the memory.

The harbor—she had fallen into the harbor? How? When? Had Rose teased her and, for some unknown and totally incongruous reason, thought it a splendid idea to send her swimming in that horrid slush of human waste. Both of them have seen the fires set on the water from time to time. Some blazes didn't wear down for hours and on one rare occasion the whole east edge of the city had been threatened by the largest fire ever set. It had taken days to put out the flames. Weeks more to repair the damage done to the warehouses. Some still sat on the now unused sections of the harbor, charred and haunted.

Needless to say, the water is a little too polluted to be  _taking a dip_.

When she sees Rose again she's going to throw her in the harbor, see how she likes freezing her tits off in that putrid mess.

Unless, of course, all of this has been some unpleasant dream. She reaches for a waypoint within her memory time line, a dreary face along the train ride, a conversation with Rose, or Paige; maybe even a way she looked up at the night sky, the angled sweep of her eyes— _anything_ —but nothing else comes. Only that brackish eternity of black.

Rey extends her consciousness deeper, straining against the confines of sleep and rousing herself further, the numbness of her limbs slowly dissipating. She feels so  _heavy_. In the distant horizon of her mind she can sense the rumbling of thunder as a storm swallows the world; there had been a storm, she surmises. Must have been.  _They have blown in early this year_ , Rose was saying.  _All Hallows Eve will be a frigid one_ , she'd said.

_When was that?_

Under the hotrod with the cracked brake rotors.

She seizes the memory, unwilling to let it slip from her grasp. Following its string, she sees the harbor out before her as her feet dangle over the dock and two stars visible through the smoggy sky. The smell of a PB and J sandwich. The rhythmic sound of Rose's contented humming.

They are supposed to go out tomorrow night, some club—

_Heaven's Night._

All at once, a dreadful pain not unlike her migraine—she'd suffered one recently, hadn't she—but undeniably different cuts through the amnesia like the crack of a whip and her eyes wrench open. The world around is nothing but blackness. She attempts to sit up with a jerk, but something stops her, a snake of thick material strapped over her chest.  _Her wrists and ankles, too!_  With her heart hammering, she struggles, but the binds holding her are too strong.

Her head spins... and spins.

She swallows, instantly regretting it as bile climbs up her throat, but having little other choice, she continues to swallow, again and again. The action causes a strange itch that spreads out from her throat to her jaw, making her teeth  _tingle_. The sensation triggers something else in her, too, an image of a gargantuan silhouette of fur, glowing eyes and terrifying claws.

It had howled— _no_ —he had howled. It had been a man and this  _man_  had shoved a bizarre talisman into her coat pocket before transforming into some bipedal monstrosity straight out of a Little Red Riding Hood folktale.  _A werewolf. A fucking werewolf._

Maybe she was crazy, maybe she'd gone fucking bonkers with that migraine and conjured up the whole episode like some waking hallucination, or maybe she'd had a stroke. It didn't matter, though. No one in their right mind would have lingered, so she sure as hell didn't. She'd run, bullets whizzing passed her and her sanity screaming. When her legs could go no more, she'd nearly collapsed against the concrete wall of an underpass, lungs burning and muscles quivering.

She had drawn the talisman from her pocket here, studying it. The pale blue stone at its center had glowed in the sodium-orange halo of a streetlight, the curious geometric lines surrounding the stone making her think of marked constellations on Paige's star map. For a long breath she'd contemplated hurling it into the concrete channel near her, but quickly reconsidered. Hallucinations or not, someone would come looking for it. And if she didn't have it...

_Does she still have it?_

Blood pounds in her ears as the rush of liquid gloom overtakes her mind again and she shivers.  _What the hell happened?_

"You're fever has started."

Her heart stops; muscles in her body go rigid like stone.

The voice comes from across the room, a calming baritone.

Seconds pass.

Then: "Shut your eyes. The light will hurt."

"I'd rather keep them open." she grounds out.

A pause. "Suit yourself."

It's all the warning she receives before the room is bathed in brilliant radiance... and his comment feels every bit a deliberate and callous understatement. She nearly shrieks at the searing intensity and clamps her eyes shut, which does little to relieve the pain. The light invades past the thin layer of her eye lids, painting shadows in stabbing red.

"Give it a moment. Some of the sensitivity will subside." he says.

She bites into her lower lip, wrestling against the restraints as a snarl utterly alien to her ears rips from her own throat. She chokes back a gasp.  _What was that?!_

 _Breathe! I have to breathe_.

_Steady._

_Focus._

Inhaling carefully through her nostrils, Rey centers on her raging heartbeat and wills it to slow, but her attempts do little more than make her heart's cadence stutter before hammering on its melody and she frantically drags in a fresh hit of oxygen. She tries a second time with some success. Then, a third. Finally, she opens her eyes. The voice is right. Some of the sensitivity does subside, yet not all. She squints painfully at her surroundings.

Things come into focus as though she has spent  _hours_  under the thick blanket of sleep. And what if she has? How long has she been out  _exactly_?

The room is small, perfectly square with what appears to be a nightstand near the foot of the bed she is currently strapped to and a single overhead light. It's naked glare digs into the soft flesh of her eyes and she blinks back tears. The walls are a blessed night shade of wine and she inwardly thanks the stars above. With a few more blinks, her eyes at last fall upon the owner of the voice.

 _Tall_ , is her first thought. _Broad,_ is her second. Then—

_Him!_

The man with devil's gold in his eyes.

He leans casually against the wall, a towering mass swathed in varying shades of black with his plush mouth puckered into a near scowl. The saturation of his lips stands out against the rest of his chromatic spectrum as a flagrant pink. They look  _kiss-bruised_  as Rose would say.

Rey swallows, the tingling in her upper gum intensifying, and she suddenly wishes she had a free hand to scratch the inside of her mouth. What she wouldn't give...

It takes her a moment to realize he is waiting for her.  _To what? To speak?_

She frowns.

More waiting.

The intensity of his gaze makes hers falter, though briefly, and she glares back at him, determined. "Where am I?"

"Safe."

The reply is unexpected and Rey gapes at him, scrutinizing the word. It holds no malice, no veiled undercurrent, but there is one very obvious catch. She glances down at her restraints, testing them.

The stranger's mouth presses tightly together, tongue working, then the emotion swirling in his eyes vanishes. Still, he waits, daring her to speak first.

She eventually relents, unable to withstand the silence. "Who are you? Where is Rose?"

"I'm not your enemy," he pauses, eyes sharpening, "unless you make me."

She bristles at that; however, he hasn't answered the more important question. "Where is my friend?"

His stare flickers along her figure, lingering on something just below her chin. "I have no idea, but you'll be relieved to hear she isn't dead."

The vice strangling Rey's heart allows a moment of relief and she inhales a shaky breath. Her throat stings. Still—

"How do I know you're not lying?"

His lips twitch at this, the most minute quirk at the corner of his mouth. "You don't, but you can trust in your friend's strength. She isn't the type to die easily."

"Did you do something to her?" Rey's voice shakes with fury.

He raises his eyebrows. "She wasn't my quarry and her actions actually helped me capture what I was hunting."

The intensity of his gaze heightens and her mouth goes dry. She knows, somehow she knows he means  _her_. Or, at least, she believes so. Her lungs tremble with the static charge of the situation. If he had wanted to kill her, he would have done it outright, but he has her strapped to a bed in God knows where and he had called her 'the contact' in the subway.

"You want what the other man gave me." she states bluntly.

Hadn't he taken it from her pocket? Her jacket is gone, leaving her only with her off-white turtleneck, and she finds that her neck aches too much to gaze any lower down her body. She looks back at him, weighing his expression. He mirrors her, his scowl deepening.

"Where is it?" he finally asks.

She blinks, the action causing discomfort. "I..."

"Did you get rid of it? Toss it as soon as you left the tunnel?" The first hints of emotion tinge his voice... and they frighten her.

"I just want to go home." She hates herself for sounding weak, terrified, but it's the truth. Biting back a sob, she continues before he can reply. "It was in my pocket. Some kind of talisman, or amulet—I don't know. I was going to throw it away, but I thought..." she trails off.

His posture straightens, adding more height to him, but he remains against the wall. The coiling energy of his muscles, however, betrays him. He is angry, or frustrated, or likely both. Maybe even a bit maniacal. She can't be sure.

"You knew someone would come looking for it."

She nods mutely.

He breaks eye contact for the first time, glancing up to the ceiling, then the floor, then to her again. "Do you remember what happened to you?"

She shakes her head.

"Do you remember the subway?"

"Yes." She looks away, incapable of holding his gaze any longer.

The sound of his footsteps signal his approach and her fingers curl into her palm, nails biting skin. His movements are slow, deliberate. He stops just at the outskirts of her periphery, his shadow blotting out the light above them.

"Do you remember..." he hesitates and her eyes dart to him on instinct. She watches while he licks his lips, the corner side of his mouth quivering as if to tame a snarl, and his left eye twitches. He inhales, nostrils flaring, then says in a voice too low to be formal. "Do you remember being bitten?"

Her jaw falls slack. "What?"

At once she registers the brown flecks on the material of her top, somehow having missed them earlier.  _Bitten? What kind of fucked up—_

"Not many humans survive the bite from an immortal. Most die within hours. You've survived two days."

"What?" she parrots again, struck helplessly dumb by the declaration.

He's crazy. Or she's crazy. She's hallucinating, or dreaming or whatever the hell this migraine has caused.  _Right? Right?! RIGHT?!_

A stroke. That's it. In the middle of an abnormally cold October, she's suffered a severe cerebrovascular accident and is out on the street somewhere, delirious and dying. Scavengers have already pick-pocketed what meager belongings she carries and  _only that_  if she's lucky. But she's never lucky.

_Two days?_

Images of the werewolf surface in her mind anew and she clamps her teeth shut, causing pain to blossom through her jaw and the itch to become near unbearable. With these images come fresher ones, ones of a face contorted with agony, the hilt of a blade, and teeth. Pain. Warmth. It had trickled down her collarbone.

She groans, tearing at her restraints.

"It will get worse before it gets better." he murmurs.

Her heart thuds in her chest as she succumbs to panic.

Something brushes next to her ear and she wants to shy away, but his voice stops her. "Don't be afraid."

"Wh—what—happening—me?" she chokes, her breathing shallow and ragged.

"This isn't what I wanted." he whispers, his exhale warm on her skin. "Just breathe, Rey. Breathe."

The shift of his tone makes her turn her head, facing him. Through her bleary vision she distinguishes the movement of his lips.

They utter a single word. Over and over.

**_._ **

****

**.**

 

She isn't sure when she wakes again, but her stomach growls indignantly in the dark. She's hungry.  _God!_  Has she ever felt this species of hunger before? Maybe once, when she'd hidden away from the Niima cafeteria for fear of being beaten by the older girls. She had eventually acquiesced to her need, though, and the thrashing was one she never forgot, full stomach or not.

"Hello?" she croaks.

Nothing.

"Hello?" she tries a little louder, but her voice breaks.

Movement in the other room captures her attention and she stills. The door opens quickly and shuts, her eyes spared most of the agony caused by the light. Footsteps reach her side and she jolts when a warm hand touches her forehead. She is sweating profusely.

Something cool and hard touches her lips and she cringes away.

"Drink." the stranger says softly. "It's only water."

She opens her mouth and the cool liquid is heaven on her tongue. She takes a long swallow. Then another, and another, and another.

"Slow." he pulls the rim of the glass from her mouth. "You can barely keep anything down."

Rey ignores him, angling up and grabbing the rim with her teeth, nearly pulling it out of his hand. After the fourth swig her stomach abruptly revolts and she whimpers, trying with all her might to keep the liquid down. Her throat feels exhausted, raw and thoroughly unwilling to cooperate. Losing the battle, she quickly turns away from his presence and vomits against the side of her arm, tears streaming down her face.

A sigh blows across her hair. "I told you to slow down."

"I want to go home." she asserts miserably. "Let me go."

A wet towel dabs at her arm and cheeks. "I... can't... do that."

"Why are you keeping me alive, then?" Rey snaps, voice hoarse. "Just kill me already. I don't have your talisman. I don't even know where it is."

"I never planned on killing you." his remarks tersely.

 _Has she offended him?_ "Then what do you want?"

He doesn't answer. Instead, he changes the subject. "I will remove these restraints, but you have to promise to stay here."

Rey snorts. "And you'd believe my promise if I gave it to you?"

"No." She can hear the ghost of something pleasant in his voice. "That is why you won't be alone."

The door opens and closes again and Rey finds for the first time that she can distinguish small features in the darkness. Two figures.

"This is a bad idea, Kylo." a female voice claims warily.

_The stranger's name is Kylo._

Kylo's shadow rises from Rey's bedside and turns to the girl. "You will keep this from the others, from Hux and especially from the supreme leader."

A huff. "I will do anything you ask, master, but this—"

"Then, do it."

With that, she feels hands rustling at her restraints, undoing her chest strap first, then her ankles and finally her wrists. Before she can attempt to sit up, however, one of the hands presses on her shoulder.

"Not yet." Kylo murmurs.

"Why are you even keeping her alive?" the girl inquires hotly, though there is a level of restraint to her words. Or maybe submission.

No response.

"If you want, I can go and look for the object without Hux's men knowing, but keeping this fledgling alive is dangerous!"

Rey feels sharp movement and then hears a shocked gasp near the door.

"I... I was only pointing out how dangerous this is." the girl whispers, panic coloring her tone.

"Duly noted." Kylo's words drip finality. "Now, I will be gone for a few hours. Attend to her until I get back."

"We won't be able to keep this from the First Order for long, let alone the pack." the girl says.

Rey gathers the information and tucks it away.

"I'll worry about that. You worry about her."

The door opens and Kylo's hulking shadow exits, the door shutting behind him with a resounding click. Rey waits, sitting up and rubbing her shoulders. The girl is still here, near the far corner with her eyes on Rey. She can smell her more than see her and anyone would be able to feel the contempt in her glare. Renewed fear spikes in Rey's chest and she clenches her jaw, instantly regretting the action as pain resurfaces.

It momentarily shocks Rey how  _well_  she can smell the girl, the scent of cigarette smoke on her blouse, her perfume—something like patchouli and vanilla—and a distinct musk that's too powerful to be an undertone. Rey's nose wrinkles on impulse and her lips peel back in a grimace.  _What is that?_

The frail ghost of what Rey assumes is Kylo's scent lingers, too, but before Rey can decipher it, the girl's voice cuts through the silence.

"It's sunset. Your eyes should be able to deal with the light now." she announces brusquely.

"Why are you keeping me alive?" Rey asks, tone guarded. "Is this some kind of sick game?"

The girl scoffs. "I don't presume to know my master's reasoning. I'm just here to keep him out of trouble."

Rey intends to reply; however, the door is abruptly thrust open and she hastily scrambles to shield her face, anxious of the light on her eyes, which does cause her moderate pain, but nothing like it was before. She breathes a steadying breath.

"You need to eat." The girl's departing words leave Rey staring after her, absorbing her wild pink hair and lithe legs.

Beyond the doorway, Rey finds a king-sized bed, its dark wine duvet carefully undisturbed. On the ceiling above the bed is a weapon plaque with a monstrous sword, hilt wrapped with blackened leather and whetted edge glinting in the sun's last radiance. It looks ancient, the rounded pommel set with a crimson orb that glares at her like a seething eye and a cross guard carved into some kind of animal skull.

She risks stepping off the bed, trying out her legs. Dizziness ripples up from her toes, but she checks it before it can cloud her mind, swallowing hard, and shuffles out into the next room. The bedroom is easily the size of her entire flat and it has a better balcony, too. With a momentary flare of jealousy, she turns to find the girl standing in the doorway to the living area, her expression even less welcoming than her attitude.

"You can't escape. We're on the thirtieth floor."

She says this as if heights should frighten Rey. Rey squares her shoulders.

"Eating will help to ease the symptoms for a while." the girl continues. "Come on."

Rey follows, albeit reluctantly. _She_ is _hungry._

Her footfalls stutter to a stop the second she enters the living area. Nothing appears out of the norm; no macabre scene of gory bodies or collection of skulls lining the walls tallying Kylo's kill count. Everything is normal...

... aside from the television.

A hot blush creeps up Rey's neck into her cheeks and she gawks stupidly at the screen. The TV displays a porn video in the thick—quite literally—of the fun. Her flush deepens and she turns her appalled stare onto the girl who gazes at her with measured eyes, a hint of humor behind them.

"I like voyeurism." she shrugs. "Kylo's stash isn't as good as mine, though. This one is a little too tame for me."

Clearing her throat and instantly regretting that bothersome itch, Rey heads deliberately into the kitchen, not needing the girl to lead the way. Once able to look around the walls without her eyes dragging back to the television screen, Rey relaxes a fraction.

_Thank God it's muted._

The girl enters and motions to a stool at the kitchen island. "Sit."

"I can make my own—"

In a flash her face hovers centimeters from Rey's, the curiously gray-gold of her eyes kindling like coals on a fire. "I. Said. Sit."

The instinct to recoil spears through Rey's gut, but she holds her ground, tilting her chin up defiantly.

An ambulance siren blares from below them in the streets.

Horns honk.

The low rumble of a base stereo.

And the girl's mouth suddenly breaks into a wolfish grin. "Maybe it isn't surprising after all that my master kept you alive." She pauses to  _sniff_  Rey. "I think I'm beginning to like you a little. What's your name?"

"Yours first." Rey counters tightly.

She laughs, stepping back and crossing her arms. "Ruelle."

"Rey."

Ruelle clicks her tongue almost approvingly and busies herself around the kitchen, pulling out silverware, a loaf of bread, a package of lunch meat from the refrigerator. Rey finally sits rigidly onto the stool, watching her.

"Human food isn't what you're craving, but it will do the trick for now." Ruelle says conversationally. "Drink that water, too." She points to a glass on the island.

_Kylo must have sit it there when he'd left._

Rey drains every drop.

**_._ **

****

**.**

 

 

A couple hours later the TV is thankfully black and Ruelle is slouching on one of the couches twiddling her thumbs as Rey leans against the doorway of Kylo's bedroom, her gaze drifting furtively now and again to the balcony. The room she'd woken in was a panic room, Ruelle had told her, an addition to the apartment Kylo had specifically requested in case of emergency. Ruelle had thought him overly paranoid at the time.

Not anymore.

"You said it would be safer if Kylo had just terminated me. That I was evidence of his disobedience. What did you mean by that?"

Ruelle peers shrewdly at her. "Our master has his tendencies. The pack does what it can to keep him out of trouble. To protect him." She stops, eyes hardening on Rey. "But he doesn't listen to reason obviously."

_Werewolves. Vampires. A war brewing underneath the world she thought she knew._

And now, she is becoming a part of that world. She is becoming a—

Shaking her head, she focuses on a more straightforward dilemma. "If Kylo is a werewolf, why did that other wolf attack him?"

"Finn." Ruelle hurls the name like a curse. "He's a traitor."

"You mean he was once on your side?"

She studies Rey, lips pressing into a thin line. "He was once in our pack."

Rey's lips form an 'o' and she glances away, suddenly feeling self-conscious for bringing it up, but her curiosity gets the better of her. "What does Kylo want with that talisman?"

Ruelle looks away distantly. "To finish what his uncle started."

"Uncle?"

Ruelle scowls at her. "That's enough questions for now."

Rey ignores her and switches direction instead. "The men that attacked me, the ones Kylo killed... They were on Finn's side?"

If she can glean enough information from this girl, maybe she can use it in the future. If she even has a future.

"No." Ruelle answers curtly.

"Then why—"

"Because they got in his way." she snarls, rising from the couch in a rush. The hatred she levels at Rey borders on revulsion, the kind of emotion designated for a rabid animal which must be put down. "Like I said, you're trouble, a loose end. It's only a matter of time before you fuck everything up. I'd hoped the fever would kill you, but Kylo is never that lucky... and he's shit at keeping secrets."

So he's got her locked away up here because that's exactly what she is.  _His little secret._

And what of Rose? Or Paige? Bodhi?

Will wolves or vampires go looking for them? Have they already? What if Kylo was lying? What if he killed Rose? Telling her a vague fairytale of Rose's survival would keep her more manageable wouldn't it? Her current state is answer enough. She turns her face away from Ruelle and glowers out to the skyline.  _If he has hurt Rose..._

She has to get away.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **PLEASE REMEMBER TO REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW!  
> ** **CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM IS WELCOME!**  
>    
> 
> 
> **Extra Notes & Links:**  
>  Quote Translation -> "Knock knock, let me in. / Let me be your secret sin."  
>  [Ruelle Face Cast](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/473370610810262754/) & [Outfit Style](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/50313720808338519/) (she flickers between many subcategories within Goth fashion)  
>  [Inspiration for the cross guard of Kylo's sword](http://filmswords.com/conan/images/masters-2.jpg)  
>  [Concrete channel reference](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e2/8b/d2/e28bd28d366bdfe3d25f190e8193e9f7.jpg) (with viaduct)  
>    
>  _** And if you're curious:[A List of My Reylo Projects](https://docs.google.com/document/d/16q3fr4pVdDBxtau38eySYJaC6BlaELqdz0I9ZxAW9Ng/edit?usp=sharing) (completed, in-the-works & upcoming) **_  
> 


	5. Heaven's Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N:** Soooo, I was going to update a couple days sooner, but I got distracted by this little beauty, [Sun, Sand and Stone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14159823/chapters/32636709). And wow! Thanks for all the love! This chapter is _specifically_ to indulge my weaknesses. Just imagine all the world in stark shades of gray and black, drenched in glitter, illuminated by neon lights and thrumming with the steady pulse of club music. Picture it, Snoke's sepulcher awash with sparkles in the dark. Oh and I totally neglected to include this last chapter! I made a [gifset](https://reyloisblessed.tumblr.com/post/174949293692/reyloisblessed-her-killing-moon-reylo) for the story. Not the greatest, but it gets the point across. X3
> 
>  **SONG INSPIRATION:** [Grey Echoes - Dronny Darko](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM0w2z18gB8) (ambient track for Snoke's chamber), [Lucretia My Reflection - The Sisters of Mercy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuezNswtRfo) & [Call the Ships to Port - Covenant](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eDkFlVSwnk) (this song plays during Kylo's and Rey's interaction at Heaven's Night) 
> 
> **WARNINGS:** Rey seduces a stranger in a public restroom, blood, feeding, Kylo is _not_ happy about it (our boy is hella jealous), sexual content (still PG-13 but we're getting closer to rated R territory), and lastly... I'm sooo sorry for this chapter's ending (I'll make up for it, I promise)

 

* * *

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 _"A single spark of passion,_  
_Can change a man forever._  
_A moment in a lifetime,_  
_Is all it takes to break him."_

\- Call Our Ships to Port / Covenant

.

* * *

 

 

 

The wind whips in from outside the car, crisp and knife-like as he barrels down the lonely interstate, farther from the city, farther from the current fixation on his mind—the girl—what she can give him, anyway.  _Skywalker._  Or at the very least, a way to the traitorous old bastard. Kylo's grip tightens at the stirring wheel and he releases a pent-up sigh.

 _But she no longer has the object, does she?_  his mind taunts. And where is it now? At the bottom of the harbor?

 _Likely_ , another part of him grumbles.

Or worse... in the hands of the Resistance. He quashes this thought at conception, not allowing it the chance to grow.

The waxing moon peers down from above, half-lidded within a bed of night satin as the speedometer hits one hundred and fifty miles per hour. He loves the enthusiastic purr of the machine as the engine's previous gear crests, then switches over to the next gear, drawing in a low and smooth rumble of sound, and building again, building.

Once the girl has served her purpose, he can be rid of her. Whatever that entails.  _It doesn't matter_ , he convinces himself. The only thing that matters is Skywalker and proving to Snoke that he can perform his duties, that he is more than capable of being the Master of the Knights of Ren, but chiefly, that he can maintain the legacy borne in his blood.

 _A potential which should not be wasted_ , Snoke had often said.

The shadowy sea of trees impress upon him as the highway narrows and he turns off onto the private road to the  _Supremacy_. After ten minutes of winding white rock, he comes to the main gate, still two miles out from the mansion itself. The gate's computer screen flickers to life and a slight man peers out at him, his mousy features drawing up in surprise and disquiet.

"Kylo Ren. Snoke is expecting you."

He grits his teeth, concealing the twitch of his jaw. Kylo had expected this meeting to be unpleasant. Now, all he has to do is gauge just  _how_  unpleasant.

"Open the gate, Mitaka."

Hesitation. "You never answered your cell."

A warning?

A suggestion?

Kylo's neglect of the offensive piece of technology is proving to be a growing problem, one he must rectify if he wishes to survive these  _meetings_. Nevertheless, "Does your general want to know when I take a piss, so he can hold it for me as well?"

The other man's eyes widen, first with shock at such audacity, then veiled amusement—very veiled. "General Hux waits in the second floor lounge."

Kylo waves his hand dismissively and the computer screen goes black, the gates swing open, and he spurs ahead, ignoring the proper speed and hastening down the remaining asphalt before twisting into his usual parking spot at the very front of the mansion. There's no need to park in the garage; he won't be here long and, and if he is, he can use this meager stunt as a half-ass excuse to slip away.

A trickle of unease cascades down his spine and he blows out a sigh, forcing anger into the action. Fear will do him no favors here. He muzzles the distasteful sensation, throwing open his door and expecting Silas before the man even melts out of the darkness, expression set in stone and a high color staining his cheekbones. Four other figures trail after him as Kylo exits the vehicle and hurls the door shut. He turns to face them promptly, concealing his unease as best he can.

But they can all sense it. He shifts his focus, shooting a cursory glare at each of them and they drop their gaze like clockwork. Regardless of their curiosity and their own nervousness for their master's underlying distress, they will not disrespect an able-bodied alpha. So long as Kylo shows more strength than weakness, so long as he proves to them his brutality, he will remain their leader.

He has offhandedly wondered how his mother handles alphas among her Resistance. It cannot be easy, though as her son, he knows the cold and deadly precision of her leadership.

_'Being a leader is not an easy task, Ben. It requires a certain absence of emotion, something women are inherently compelled to suffer. So one such as myself must cut those inconvenient things from her chest, with a rusty knife if need be, and carry individuals unable to lead themselves, because leading requires a set of eyes willing to see the good of the many over the good of the one. That, my son, is the burden of a mother leader.'_

Her voice echoes through the chambers and corridors of his mind, beckoning him to old memories, but he instantly stifles them, casting them back into the countless crags and crevices where they belong. Slamming mental doors, locking them, tossing away keys. Haphazard silver and gold littered across the floors of his mind—reminders.

Thankfully, Silas breaks his train of thought as he stops before him. "Where is Ruelle?"

"Where I need her to be." Kylo answers lackadaisically.

"Of course, master. But your pack... is concerned." Silas chooses his words carefully as they begin their trek to the mansion entrance. "The vampires are abuzz with rumor and we've heard what has happened with this girl. The triplets sighted Rebel wolves still patrolling the harbor, which suggests she's slipped from the hands of the Resistance. Should Ruelle not have others in the pack with her? If you have given her the task of tracking down the girl, the pack would want the mission to be a success."

Kylo glances idly behind him at the four trailing faces, three of them identical, pale and emotionless. The triplets. Murderous jackals. _Efficient tools._  They were never human, really. The fourth is a stalwart man with more beard and brow than hair atop his head, scars littering his cheeks and a weathered eye patch over his right eye. Silas' father, Cadoc. Silas had turned him the night Ben Solo had died, all those centuries ago. So many lives lost that night, so much blood.

"Master?"

Silas' voice.  _What was he saying? Ah yes..._  "You will leave Ruelle to her task. For now. After my meeting with the supreme leader you and Cadoc will accompany me to the harbor."

Silas nods, holding his tongue; however, Kylo knows he wants to ask his questions. But that isn't how you conduct yourself before an alpha is it. He peers furtively at Silas' posture, his walk. He is angry, offended, in fact. He can also feel Cadoc's eyes burrowing into the back of his neck, openly egging him.

The triplets never speak, never ask questions. They never do.  _Murderous._

Kylo throws open the double doors, ignoring Mitaka who appears to have been waiting for him and strides right up the stairs. Silas and the others wait, watching him as he ascends with each heavy step, their submissive eyes pointed at his back, arrows trained on a red bulls-eye.

In the darkly silhouetted lounge, Hux stands with his arms clasped at his back, his razor-edged grimace outlined in the glass pane of one of the many floor-to-ceiling windows. He does not turn upon Kylo's approach and Kylo stops five paces from him, shoulders rolled back, fists held at his sides, expression schooled to indifference.

Minutes tick by.

Kylo does not move.

The lips of Hux's ghost reflection tremble at their corners, drawing lower.

More minutes go to waste, the silence blossoming into something electric and oppressive.

The agitation bubbling below Kylo's skin surfaces, coaxing his left eye to twitch.  _A dead give away..._

And Hux sees it.

"Do you realize the mess you've made, Ren?" he inquires at last, his voice cool and measured.

Kylo has never fancied lying, so he doesn't. He sticks to what he's good at, deflecting and omitting information. "Your men were ill-prepared against a trained wolf. I assumed you took more pride in your soldiers."

_'If you're ever in a bad situation, take your impatience and turn it onto other's. Make them lose their head first. Don't give them the opportunity to figure out you've never had one.'_

His father's voice. Kylo pushes it angrily away. Of all the things to come to his mind, it had to be those words.

"How dare you—"

Kylo cuts him off. "I will ask then, what was your purpose, sending three fledglings and only one experienced vampire?" He even scoffs at the word  _experienced_. "To a Rebel they wouldn't last five seconds, be that a lone wolf or a pack."

"I will not have you questioning my methods! Regardless of your place at the foot of Snoke's throne, you hold no authority over me or my coven!"

Kylo lets that jab go, though the abrupt urge to rip Hux's tongue from his mouth is tempting. He focuses instead on leading Hux exactly where he needs him to go prior to entering Snoke's chamber. "Snoke's coven." he whispers.

The words weigh heavy in the air and Hux's mouth falls open, his skin blanching. "You dare to speak of your supreme leader after you've disobeyed his direct order and killed my soldiers!"

 _Hux's own deflection._ After all, this is still Snoke's coven, but an ambitious man can dream. And Hux dreams.

"Did I kill your soldiers, general?"

Hux sputters, his cerulean eyes flashing. "You're unhinged, a liability! It wouldn't surprise me if you had!"

"Would Snoke come to your same conclusion?"

_Almost there._

_'That's right, son. Hold off for a few more—'_

_Shut up!_

"You lost us the object! My men are dead, their bodies unaccounted for with the only piece of evidence left being no evidence at all and the dock completely sanitized. We've zero to go on save the human girl and she is now in the hands of the Resistance!"

 _Yes, that evidence_ , Kylo's wolf croons.  _Craven's heart._  It was a pleasure cutting that miserable thing from his dead chest and driving into it a stake made of juniper wood, the marker of a Rebel wolf's kill. And the best part, Hux has convinced himself of Kylo's deception—or more aptly put, Kylo's lack of information—and he doesn't even know it yet.

 _We all have our blind spots, general_ , Kylo grins inwardly. "I knew your men didn't stand a chance at bringing the girl back. It seems I was right."

Hux whips around, fangs bared. "My soldiers are exceptionally trained, you filthy, mangy—

Kylo's rage finally gets the better of him and he snaps forward at terrifying speed, sending Hux backwards on his heels as he attempts to maneuver his body for the attack. Only too late. Kylo closes his hand around the bastard's throat and pummels him into the window behind them, spider cracks radiating outward as Hux claws frantically at his gloved hand. Nails bite through the leather, burning lines into the skin of his wrist, but Kylo remains unfazed.

"Your soldiers were slaughtered by a wolf, general. We  _filthy, mangy_  wolves." Kylo grins at him. "Perhaps there is reason behind Snoke's decision to keep me at the foot of his throne, seeing as you and your men cannot apprehend a single human woman."

"Your fault." Hux mangles out, his scowling eyes red and watering.

Kylo releases him and he slides down the glass, clutching onto the frame with buckling knees. "That's not what you said, general. By all accounts, the way you described it sounds like I was the only one actually doing my job. And should I tell our supreme leader of your soldiers' incompetence at the subway station?" Kylo's eyes glint malevolently.

Hux lifts his chin, ginger hair falling in his face. "Your failure." His words are nothing but wind and sandpaper.

"Oh, I think we both shoulder that failure, general. Seeing as it was one of your men that gave away my packs' position. All of this could have been avoided had your soldiers used that exceptional training of theirs. The object would be ours, your men wouldn't be  _unaccounted for_  and the girl wouldn't even be a factor." The acidity of his attack loses some of its edge at the mention of  _the girl_. He ignores it, keeping his mind in the present.

The wheels in Hux's mind turn and Kylo sees the exact moment he begrudgingly accepts what Kylo is saying, because Hux knows. He knows he has no other choice, at least for now. Kylo has outmaneuvered him—a rarity in this instance to be sure—and there is no time to counter it. With their second failure to acquire the object, Hux is now in a precarious position, especially if Kylo chooses to bring up the little stunt one of his men pulled at Hazel Street Station.

Hux will make him pay eventually. Kylo has no doubt of that.

The walk down to Snoke's crypt is uncomfortably silent for both of them, but Kylo must retain his air of superiority in this moment. He steels himself, encasing his baser emotions in a protective shell of snobbish insults aimed at his rival who trails after him with a calculating, sour expression. Hux being present will make the deception in some ways easier, if  _easy_  is even a possibility in the supreme leader's presence, but more difficult in others. Kylo's fear spikes.

 _Relax_ , his mind cautions.  _If you give yourself away, the girl will be lost to you._

 _And the way to Skywalker_ , he vehemently reminds himself.

Hux won't let things flow smoothly, either. The asshole is cunning, a bloodthirsty jackal with no taste for honor—which Kylo himself finds thoroughly offensive—but cunning nonetheless. It isn't every day Kylo bests the man at his own game... and Kylo shouldn't let it go to waste.

Hux is a survivor.

Like himself.

They enter with little fanfare, Hux trailing  _harmlessly_ behind Kylo, and the double doors slam shut after them, a cold rush of air bellowing at their coattails. Kylo musters all his willpower to keep the hair on the back of his neck from rising and he slips into a more self-assured stance, shoulders rolling back, spine straightening, eyes lowering to half mast and lips almost betraying a smirk.

"Kylo Ren. You come to my chamber with such presence. May I ask why?" Snoke bleeds out of the darkness from behind his throne, the arctic blue of his eyes glimmering, threatening.

Kylo kneels, gaze respectfully downcast, and does not reply.

"After your blatant disregard of my previous command, you dare come into this chamber with  _that_  presence?"

Hux's feet shift behind Kylo, eager to steal his chance, but the other man holds his tongue, knowing the volatile danger of Snoke's wrath.

Kylo ignores the smirk begging to dominate his lips, forcing a dead gleam over his eyes. "I have failed, supreme leader. You are wise and your guidance has taught me the folly of my kin. I did what I did not out of disobedience, but loyalty. To you. To all you have taught me." He says the words, believing them... and yet a part of him revolts. He quells this part, the wolf in him bearing down like a storm, snuffing out the renegade thoughts like candles in the wind.

Later perhaps, but not now.

"Loyalty?" Snoke purrs.

From behind him, Kylo can feel Hux's mouth twitching, eyes sharpening, that cunning mind racing for a single opening, just one—

But Kylo doesn't let him have it. Instead, he changes to a new tactic, one he deigns to utilize. "You are wise, supreme leader. I have trusted you for many centuries, remained loyal to you and to the cause. I've only done what is in the best interest for the future you envision."

Openly grovelling feels awkward and heavy to him, but he maintains his subdued temperament. If anything, Kylo's discomfort could work to his advantage. At least, he hopes it will.

Snoke's ruthless glare probes him, cataloging every minute detail, making Kylo feel as naked as the day he was born. Then: "Very well, explain yourself."

Hux's annoyed hiss behind him finally makes the smirk irresistible and Kylo's lips curls derisively. He raises his head, making direct eye-contact with Snoke as he speaks. "It is believed that the Resistance has captured the girl. That the object we seek is in their hands. I can say with some certainty that this is not the case."

"Oh?" Snoke settles into his throne, long sleeves draping over the stone.

"That cannot be confirmed, supreme leader." Hux cuts in.

"No it can't." Kylo agrees quickly, jumping ahead of Hux before he can say more. "However, my wolves have been down to the dock after my discovery of Hux's massacred team. They note that there are several Rebel wolves now patrolling the area."

_Not entirely a lie. But omissions always work better than lies, don't they..._

Snoke's attention turns to Hux. "It concerns me general that you failed to send a more adequate team for this little  _errand_."

"I take full responsibility, supreme—"

"I did not permit you to speak." Snoke's low growl carries in the air like thunder and the veins at his temples pulse.

Silence.

Kylo averts his eyes back to the marbled floor and waits. The cogs of Hux's mind clank and whine so loudly Kylo fancies that his head might burst, but Kylo knows he would be allowed no such favors. Instead the two men remain in the stillness, both beneath the vulturous gaze of their sovereign like the proper vassals they are.

"You disobeyed my order, Kylo Ren."

Kylo bows his head lower. "Yes, supreme leader."

"You've come to believe that our enemy does not have the girl, nor the object." He asserts, his tone warning Kylo to hold his tongue.

The air grows heavy.

"Have you brought me anything else aside from this  _possibility_?"

"The girl has been bitten, supreme leader. If she survives, she will come looking for protection." Kylo isn't sure revealing this tidbit of information is wise, but he knows he has to give Snoke something more, or this little segment of the game is lost.

"A vampire." Snoke grins. "You saw this transpire, my loyal apprentice, and you did not intervene? What are a small number of Rebels to the Master of the Knights of Ren?"

Kylo glowers up at him, unable to retain his ire, but he decides to deflect from the question. Lying will only get him into trouble. "Supreme leader, I can find the girl. The object is what matters. We cannot allow the Resistance to find Skywalker."

Snoke's gnarled hands steeple in front of his chin, elbows resting on the hard armrests of the throne. "No. We cannot."

Hux steps forward, finally daring to speak out of turn. "With your permission, I can send another squad of men to remedy this situation. I can head the team myself, supreme leader."

"No. You and I will discuss your failure further, along with what happened at Hazel Street Station." Snoke purrs, causing Hux's pale complexion to drain entirely. Snoke then turns his attention to Kylo. "You and your knights will find this child. You will recover the object. Afterwards, you will kill her."

"Supreme leader?" Kylo blurts in surprise.

"This has gotten far enough out of hand. Both of you have failed to bring this girl in and because of that, we are going on  _possibilities_." Snoke's eyes flash with deadly finality. "Her death will be a  _certainty_  against the Resistance."

Kylo wants to argue with him, to tell him that the object is what matters. That the girl is of no consequence, but he isn't entirely sure Snoke wants the girl's death simply for certainty against the Resistance. He swallows, unnerved, and bows as the renegade thoughts surface again.

"Go now, Kylo Ren. See that you  _do not_  fail me this time."

Kylo leaves the chamber in a hot rush, his heart pounding and a strange uneasiness settling in his stomach. For now, he can't think on what just happened, only that he somehow maneuvered himself from one tight spot to another. Between Snoke's good graces and this girl.  _Rey._

He hadn't even bothered to savor the look of animal fear on Hux's face. Pity.

Halfway up the winding stairs, his cellphone vibrates against his hip. He pauses, glancing around himself conspiratorially as the uneasiness grows, and eventually pulls the device from his pocket.

The name glowing on its face reads:  _Ruelle_.

"What?" he answers waspishly, still unsure as to why he abruptly feels...  _ill_?

A drag of silence—

—and his churning stomach drops.

"Ruelle?"

"I swear I was only looking away for a moment."

His nostrils flare.

"She just... she just jumped. I don't—she's still transitioning. She shouldn't be able—but the bitch is as agile as a cat. She landed on the balcony a couple stories below and... She just moves so  _fast_."

His eye twitches.

Ruelle's ragged breaths fill his ear.

He sets his jaw, doing all he can to compose his flare of rage. "Where are you?"

Her voice breaks unevenly— _she's been running_. "I've tracked her five blocks from your apartment, but she set a street patrol on me. I had to back off."

Kylo pinches the bridge of his nose. "I'll be there. Keep your eye on her. I know where she's headed."

"How the hell can you know—"

He kills the call without another word. The direction of her course is obvious.

_Daisy Villa Apartments._

 

.

 

****

**.**

 

Silas and Cadoc had given him confused glances when he'd passed them through the foyer not an hour ago, shaking his head with a sharp jerk as they had attempted to follow him. The harbor could wait. Snoke's orders—if he ever actually meant to go through with them in the first place— _could wait_.

His cell vibrates again.

Ruelle's voice echoes over the line before he answers.

"She was heading to the south side of the city, but she's gotten sidetracked. She's hunting, Kylo. This is getting out of hand. I should—"

"No!" he snaps. "Stay on her. I'll be there shortly. Where are you?"

"Down Stranger Lane." A pause. "She just went into a club called  _Heaven's Night_."

He knows the place. It's on the seedier side of Stranger Lane, just past Galaxy Parkway. Most city goers like to call Stranger Lane the  _Party Strip_. Countless nightclubs, hotels, strip lounges—depending on what side of Stranger you're on—and even a couple underground casinos posing as nice little restaurants populate the bustling avenue.  _Heaven's Night_  is an animal of many vices, including adult entertainment. It's not exactly a strip lounge, but one could argue that saying such a thing is a simple play on semantics.

As it goes,  _Heaven's Night_  is the fresh novelty on the strip, and that always attracts good business.  _Lots_  of good business.

It's packed tonight.

Kylo parks his car in a vacant parking lot some blocks away and gets out, his skin pulsing with electric charge. Perhaps some of it is the music, but with the dancing lights and loud people his senses are bombarded with awareness.  _And her._

The wolf in him croons at the idea of hunting her.

Ruelle approaches inconspicuously, her untamed hair swaying with her walk and her nervous eyes downcast. Kylo walks passed her and she turns quickly to follow, falling in a couple paces from his shoulder. The two remain silent until they reach the entrance to  _Heaven's Night_ , packed to the brim with a gaggle of glittering people waiting outside. He wonders offhandedly how Rey was able to enter the club without cash. A thought comes to mind, but he instantly burns it to cinders. If such a thing transpired, then the situation has likely already spiraled out of control.

As if to confirm his suspicions, Ruelle whispers. "I saw her approach a human male in his thirties. He must have bought her way in."

Kylo bites his tongue, tastes blood. "She won't be thinking clearly." he remarks harshly, unable to curtail his mounting frustration.  _It might be too late._  "When we find her, you get her back to my car. I'll handle whatever mess she's made."

Ruelle frowns. "What if we don't find her?"

He shakes his head, unwilling to accept that possibility. The meeting with Snoke was taxing enough. "She's still there."

"How do you know?"

He doesn't answer.

She huffs. "Well, we can't just linger back here twiddling our fucking thumbs until we get in. This line spans the entire city block."

Kylo nods, then immediately begins shoving people out of his way, cutting ahead of them and snaking through to the very front of the line. Ruelle follows hastily behind him before the line can close in front of her. Affronted gasps and curses follow after them, but Kylo isn't in the mood. His broad shoulders and twisted expression stifle any attempt at a confrontation until he reaches the doorman, a bouncer who appears to be more a wall of flesh and muscle than a man.

He glares down at Kylo, his bridge piercings glinting. "Back of the line, pal."

Kylo produces a wad of cash. "No."

The man hesitates, watching as Kylo pulls out two crisp one hundred dollar bills.

"Let us in." Kylo intones.

Ruelle steps closer to him and smiles appreciatively at the man. Kylo has to suppress the urge to kick her in the shin. Now is not the time for distractions, but her actions seem to thaw the man and he takes the money, giving the two of them, especially Ruelle, another long glance before unhooking the velvet rope. Kylo stalks through the entrance corridor without looking back to see if she follows.

Upon entering the lobby, he halts at once. The scents are devastating tonight, the lights, the heat of the many bodies circulating  _everywhere_. Or maybe it's him. The lobby is outfitted with black velvet love seats, sensual sculptures cast in neon light and translucent drapery that glitters and sways from AC vents above. Sweating bodies writhe and grind atop the plush cushions and Kylo deliberately jerks his attention from them to the main archway. His nerves grind against the underside of his skin like sandpaper and he swallows, throat dry.

Ruelle purrs from beside him, roving her hungry gaze over the scene. "Damn if this hot little toy of yours doesn't know how to find a good party."

"You take the left side. I'll take the right. We'll meet at the back." he commands, all business.

She notes his stiff demeanor and a mischievous flicker lights her eyes.

Kylo feels his chest expand, the anger in him nearly boiling over and he glares at her. She instantly remembers her place, averting her stare to the ground and allowing some distance between them. If he is completely honest with himself this check in hierarchy is unnecessary, but he needs something familiar to hold on to right now. The storm of emotions inside him has his wolf rioting and the subversive thoughts leading to images of the girl with another man does inconvenient things to his blood.

He inhales, closing his eyes.

"Oh no..."

Ruelle's voice brings Kylo back and his eyes snap open. She's looking to an annular bar situated in very the center of the dance floor, or  _dance pit_  more aptly put. His gaze follows hers and a cold chill breaks across his skin. Seated atop one of the backless stools is a vampire Kylo knows well. Phasma, Hux's second in command and a skilled executioner of his kind. Kylo learned first hand some decades ago that she keeps a special room full of trophy pieces from every Rebel wolf she kills. He'd be lying if he said it didn't anger him. It still does.

She downs a shot of what Kylo assumes is whiskey and demands another.

"What the hell is she doing here?!" Ruelle hisses.

 _A very good question_ , Kylo worries inwardly, though there's no room to dwell on it now because, frankly, his mind is fucking shot.  _Can this night get any worse? Can this_ week _get any worse?_

He hopes to hell he wouldn't get an answer to those questions and motions to Ruelle. "Stay clear of the pit. Don't let her catch your scent. She can't know what the girl looks like."

Ruelle looks unconvinced, but complies. "If I find her?"

"Do as I said before." he murmurs, never taking his eyes off Phasma. "I'll take care of everything else."

"Yes master."

Ruelle melts swiftly into the crowd as she passes through the archway and Kylo follows, his face illuminated a lustful pink in the glimmering lights. The deep baseline of the music pulses through the air, through the bodies, resonating over the walls as if over water and reverberates back to him, tickling his bones with pleasure. The wolf in him groans, dark, earthy purrs that make his veins burn with hunger. Too many warm bodies, too much sweat, the musk of sexual want from various couples on the dance floor making his own dick twitch.

He scans the crowd, hoping to see her, to catch her scent— _anything_. Ruelle glances at him from across the way, her look of disappointment evident as the stage lights sweep over the masses. Kylo also maintains a keen eye on Phasma as she rises from her seat and glides into the undulating crowd, her gleaming crop of blonde hair easy to spot in the mayhem of fluid shapes. He ducks quickly behind a group of men laughing loudly and clanking their beers.

Then, near the back of the room, a tendril of spice and summer. He peers down the narrow hallway leading to the rear restrooms. The hair at the nape of his neck stands at attention and he hastens forward, ignoring his own command to meet Ruelle before making their next move. He can't help himself, the wolf in him clamoring about like an angry bull.

Rey's scent grows stronger and his ears perk as he hears the muffled sound of a man's voice on the other side of the door to the men's lavatory—broken sentences, then a moan. Kylo's teeth grind like tectonic plates, his body worked up to a vibrating frenzy, and he practically shoves the door off its hinges.

On the opposite wall is Rey. In front of her is a man plastered to the floor-to-ceiling mirror that spans the entirety of the wall. The reflection reveals a chic glittering set of stalls, urinals and sinks, but Kylo only has eyes for the two occupants of the room. The neon green of the lights cast them in an eerie glow, draining the sunlight from Rey's skin, the warmth from her hair, which is a tortured mess of loose strands tumbling from her lopsided bun. The handy-work of this nameless schmuck in her arms, no doubt.

Kylo's blood finally boils over when his eyes fall past her waist, noting that her jeans, which have ridden below her pert little ass, revealing a pair of modest grey or blue panties. He can't really tell in this light. Not that it matters. He's already moving and the schmuck's trachea is in immediate danger.

"Fuck!" the man gasps, utterly unaware of the insane wolf closing in upon him.

Kylo rips them apart, shoving Rey aside and slamming the man to the ground, towering over him like the last shadow of his life and  _snarling_. Kylo can feel the wolf within him winning, enticing the change, wanting to spring forward and rip this man's body into chaotic, bloody pieces and he almost does. He almost clamps his raging jaws around this man's neck until he notices the crimson crescent already imprinted into his skin.

_Shit..._

A lithe body suddenly slams into him and his shoulder cracks against the glass mirror. He barks out a curse of pain and whirls, catching Rey's arm and twirling her around before jerking her into his chest and cinching down on her waist with his opposite arm. She struggles, strong and driven by blood-lust, but he is older. He cranks the arm he holds up into an awkward angle until she she stills, biting back a whimper.

The man on the ground has fallen unconscious from blood loss.

_This has gotten way out of hand._

"We're not done yet." Kylo growls into her ear.

"I don't owe you anything." she fires back.

Snoke's words ring in his mind and he clamps his eyes shut, an odd emotion settling in his gut.  _'You will kill her.'_

Momentarily distracted, he misses Rey's actions until her elbow drives hard into his solar plexus and her wrist wrenches free from his hand. She snakes around, still in his hold, and aims for his throat with her fresh canines, red and glistening. He has only a split second to twist, pivoting Rey around and pressing her back into the mirror with his hand splayed across her clavicle. She pushes forward but he shoves her back down, some of the gentleness gone from his hold.

She'd almost bitten him. Such a thing would have been fatal.

The two glare at one another, breathing raggedly. Her eyes shift, like a moon overcome by the shadow of the earth, red eclipsing hazel. He can feel his own smoldering and in the reflection he sees his eyes peering back at him like two ghost lamps in the gloom.  _Rich, dark gold._

"We don't have to do this, Rey." he murmurs. "Don't be foolish."

She does not speak, the scowl on her face deepening. Her expression reminds him of his first hunt, centuries ago. His father had taken him and they'd found their quarry in the sleepy forests far from his home, a wild elk. The creature had been large and powerful, magnificent in its environment among the winter trees. What neither Kylo nor his father had realized was that they were not the only predators hunting that morning.

Staring into Rey's wild eyes he sees the thing that had nearly killed them. It had come out of the underbrush in a blur. A mountain lion, its shock of claws tearing into his father's leg and its lithe body roped with muscle. The elk had fled. Kylo remembers its burst of winter breath and the flurry of snow. He remembers being terrified... and human.

_'Run Ben!'_

But he didn't run...

_'You will kill her.'_

"I'm not your enemy." he whispers, ignoring the echo of Snoke's words. "I only want the object."

"I already told you I don't know where it is. I wasn't lying to you!" She bristles, a flicker of fear returning to her eyes.

"Your friend, Rose... you wouldn't have happened to give it to her?" There is a playful edge of sarcasm to his tone.

Rey bares her teeth, canines glinting. "You touch her and I'll rip your fucking heart out."

Her threat tugs at his lips, drawing them into a sly smirk as the blood in his veins ignites like gasoline. He leans forward, their noses brushing. "Will you know..."

It flashes in her glare before she moves, the intent to kill...

But something happens along the way—

—and her mouth crashes into his, open, panting; her fangs caressing his lower lip, savoring its fullness as she  _sucks_. His brain short circuits, his heart stutters and the wolf in him falls flat on its romp for five full seconds while all that gasoline blood reroutes, pumping with maddening speed down below his navel. He moves on instinct, arms encircling her tightly, hands sliding down her shoulders, over her waist and settling on her ass. He grips, tugs, working little circles over the material barring him from her skin as he tastes the blood on her lips, and she sighs possessively, taking hold of his hair and pulling with such ferocity that he almost whimpers.

In their delirious haze, he pins her flush to the wall, grinding, pulling, shoving, grinding. Her breath hitches in response and she parts her legs, tilting her pelvis up and forward at a damning angle that has him all but devouring her. She opens to him and he slips his tongue into her mouth with a low growl, the possibility of her biting it off not even entering his mind.

"Holy shit."

The voice startles them apart and Kylo jerks around, staggering clumsily. Ruelle stands with her hands on her hips and her stare flicking between them and the unconscious man on the floor. It takes a moment longer for the blood to return to his brain and Kylo's thoughts eventually clear. From beside him, Rey draws in heaving breaths, her gaze fixed deliberately on one of the stalls and high color staining her cheeks.

A distant part of him abruptly realizes just how dangerous that was. She could have  _bitten_  him. But more disturbing, this realization doesn't seem to concern him. At all.

"Ruelle," he says gruffly.

Her attention snaps to him, whatever playful comment she had perched on her tongue forgotten.

He points to the body. "Dispose of him."

"Dispose of him?" Rey parrots incredulously, her voice strangled with disbelief.

Kylo looks to her, face hardening. "You've bitten him. He will be dead in a matter of hours."

"I—I... I didn't..." Realization washes over her face and panic lights her gaze. "But he could survive! Like me!"

"And be the one who leads Hux, or the Rebels straight to you!" he snaps, all the patience bled out of him.

"But—"

"I told you to stay with Ruelle. You were warned. You're not a child. You know what you've become."

"But why should he pay the price?!" she yells.

Kylo invades her space, lowering his voice to a deadly whisper. "Because you're currently too valuable to me."

She falls silent, a hot rim of tears in her conflicted eyes.

 _Because of the talisman_ , he vehemently reminds himself.  _Because of Luke Skywalker._

But his gaze strays to the blanket of freckles dusting her nose and—

"It won't be easy sneaking him out with Phasma creeping around." Ruelle interrupts his thoughts.

"No." he agrees, taking a needed step away from Rey. "But we've little other choice."

The man finally stirs and Ruelle steps forward, aiding him to his feet. He sways drunkenly, eyes glazed as he grins at her with a single-minded kind of voracity that looks more pitiful than offensive. Ruelle peers sideways at him, her lips curling into a salacious grin. "He  _is_  cute. You sure know how to pick 'em." she directs her assertion at Rey.

Rey chews furiously at her lower lip and directs her gaze forcefully at the floor.

"Shut off your prurient wolf for a while and do as I say." Kylo grounds out.

"It is a shame." she opines, but says no more and departs, the door clanking shut behind them.

The vacuum of silence that follows leaves Kylo in a flurry of emotions as foreign as they are agitating. He glares at Rey, but she seems to scarcely notice his ire, her attention fixated on the tiled floor at her feet. She begins to shake, arms wrapping around her middle.

"What have I done?" she sobs, her voice small and strained.

Kylo watches her carefully, suddenly caught between a curious species of frustration and empathy. The humiliation on her face finds root in his heart and begins to  _twist_ , while the beat of the music outside batters at his skull like war drums. He has to get her out of here, somewhere safe.

_'Kill her...'_

"We have to move. Now."

She glares at him, but she isn't seeing him, her lips quavering and her focus swimming. "I want to go home."

He swallows, not knowing how to answer her demand, so he sticks to the basics. "Nowhere is safe for you, not anymore. My peoples' orders are to kill you, but if you come with me, I'll keep you hidden."

_What the fuck are you doing, Kylo?_

Something rash.

Something stupid.

The mountain lion in her flickers dimly to life again, but she's too exhausted, her emotions a raveled knot of chaos in her belly. He approaches carefully, putting out his hand to guide her ahead of him. She hesitates, looking down to the spot where the man had lain and clenches her fists.

He urges her to move, speaking as they exit the restroom. "Stay close to me.  _Do not_  leave my side. Someone is watching for you. We need to get you to my car without being noticed."

She nods mutely.

The music on the dancefloor pulses at a quickened pace, bodies jumping and swaying everywhere. Rey is pushed into him as a couple loses their balance and he clutches at her to keep her from falling. They apologize through inebriated giggles and continue on gyrating while Kylo hurries her forward, quick as shadows through the flow of movement. He searches the floor for Phasma, but doesn't see her. Dread builds in his chest and he hopes beyond hope that Phasma's sharp eyes don't see them, that their scents are lost under all the other pheromones polluting the air.

They make it successfully through one of the rear exits, but Kylo's unease only worsens as they enter a narrow alleyway. Rey puts a couple paces of distance between them now that they are alone and she smears her hands hatefully against her mouth, trying desperately to wipe all evidence of the blood away.

"We have to keep moving." Kylo murmurs, grabbing her arm.

She abruptly jerks it away. "I didn't want any part of this!" Her accusation whistles from her throat, strained and high-pitched.

"Life is cruel!" he snarls back.

Rey opens her mouth to fire off another volley of hostilities, but she never gets her chance.

Several silhouettes materialize out of the darkness, taking Kylo briefly by surprise, and he curses at his irrational behavior. He should have sensed this coming! Everything goes utterly wrong in that moment. Rey lashes out blindly and he turns to engage the combatant advancing behind him, but a cold shock of metal pierces through his chest and he gasps, crumbling in agony.  _Silver!_

 _His_ silver dagger...

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **PLEASE REMEMBER TO REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW!  
> ** **CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM IS WELCOME!**  
>    
> 
> 
> **Extra Notes & Links:**  
>  [Ferrari LaFerrari / Black](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LJop6l0KRI) (Kylo's ride, because neither he nor I have any shame.)  
>  [Juniper Tree](https://i2.wp.com/matiash.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/BrianMatiash_20141008-ILCE-7R-.jpg?fit=2500%2C1668&ssl=1) (if you're curious)  
>    
>  Discarded Songs That Also Matched the Club Aesthetic: [Engel - Rammstein](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2rQzv8OWEY), [Keine Macht - Terminal Choice](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyZH7Wv1cmA) & [Dead Stars - Covenant](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPnWOem7jok)


	6. Farewell Sacred Sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N:** Thanks so much for all the wonderful feedback! I tried to get this chapter out sooner, but my RL is currently very hectic. My sincerest apologies for the delay!
> 
>  **SONG INSPIRATION:** [Forty Six & 2 - TOOL](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm38Ojh61lY) & [The Ghost Woman and the Hunter - Lacuna Coil](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I19YpacH2ZY)
> 
>  **WARNINGS:** profanity, violence, character anxiety, possible claustrophobia elements, explicit sex dream sequence (sorta kinda not quite bestiality?)

 

* * *

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_"Down in the belly of the beast I lie_

_All I save is my..."_

\- Belly of the Beast / Danzig

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"Let me out of here!"

Rey scream echoes, brittle and hoarse off the cramped walls of the dank cell. She punches uselessly at the heavy steel door, but it earns her nothing more than aching knuckles. Pressing her forehead against the cold surface, she slides down to her knees, a ball of frustrated tears mangled in her throat. It threatens to suffocate her completely, but she swallows it down, planting her hands on the floor and allowing herself to breathe. Steady—in and out, in and out. _Stay calm, stay focused_ , she tells herself. _Shitty situations don't allow for panic._

Slowly getting to her feet, Rey makes her way to the darkest corner of the cell. She lingers there, keeping her eyes focused on the door. It's been hours since she was dragged in here, a burlap sack over her face along with her hands and ankles bound, a gaggle of unknown assailants surrounding her, their foul musk offending her heightened senses and their raucous shouts filling her with dread. Everything had happened so quickly.

_Where is Kylo?_

_Is he trapped in a cell like me?_

_Did they kill him?_

Her heart trembles at the thought. In this new world, he seems to be her only constant, a dreary lighthouse in the middle of a malevolent black ocean. Yet what of those deadly rocks surrounding the headland where he resides? How can she navigate these strange, perilous waters with her only light source being a man she scarcely trusts? Will he lead her into those rocks? _Will he...?_

Regardless of her warring emotions she finds herself thinking of him, hoping he has not suffered a fate worse than herself. In the last seconds before the alleyway went dark, she remembers his breathless exhale, a sharp curse; then, the smell. It had been the smell of blood, _his_ blood. She wraps her arms around her waist and closes her eyes, wishing to the low, cold ceiling that she was back home, back with Bodhi, and Rose, and Paige. Back in her old life.

The events of the club pass through her mind like the obnoxious, thick clouds of a summer night sky, but she chooses to ignore on them. _Not now_ , one part of her mind warns. _Later_ , another promises bitterly and she finds a new lump in her throat, this one riddled with self-loathing. Shaking her head, she sets her jaw determinedly. _Later_ , she promises them both.

Another hour passes before she hears any movement outside her prison cell. A set of boots approaching, slow, measured. Then, a door closes. The foot steps grow louder, more purposeful as they reach her cell. At last, they pause outside her door. She waits, every atom in her body screaming, every muscle coiling tight like a spring as her senses spike and her fangs unsheathe. The monster behind her eyes burns, igniting a conflagration of rage beneath her skin, though she holds it in check, willing herself to remain poised, watchful.

Heavy keys clank against the steel door, the locking mechanism releases and a slant of dim light cuts into the confined space as the door swings open. Rey hugs the shadows, straining to see the individual. She notes the broad build, the rich, dark skin, the warm eyes—

—and shock instantly tears through her like a whip.

Blinding, frenzied red engulfs her vision. "You!" The sound leaving her mouth more closely resembles that of a feral bobcat than any human sound, but she's too enraged to care. "Where are the others?!"

The man— _werewolf_ , she corrects herself, _Finn, his name is Finn_ —enters the room cautiously, his gaze locked on Rey. She angles herself low and bares her teeth at him, that strange animal sound vibrating from her throat again. He seems to weigh her reaction, standing perfectly still with his hands furled at his sides.

"Where are the others?" Rey repeats sharply.

He steps away from the door, which she realizes has been left ajar. Knowing better than to attempt an escape, she steps with him along the wall and he watches this with careful eyes. They remain this way for an eternity before he eventually speaks.

"It's midday. It will do you no good to run. The safest place for you right now is here."

She scoffs. "Safe?"

"You don't have to make this difficult." He lifts his hands slowly, opening them to show he holds no weapon, no hand cuffs. "Just come with me to answer a few questions."

"And then what?" Rey snaps.

"And then we'll get you something to eat."

She sniffs, turning her nose up at him.

"You're a newborn." he explains. "You'll need plenty of blood in your first months of transformation."

"Yeah, and whose fault is that?!" she bites hatefully, despite her efforts to tame her fury. This newfound rage both surprises and terrifies her. Never has she felt so close to losing control like this.

Finn's expression betrays the first real emotion on his face: shame. He hastily tries to conceal it under his mask of apathy, but not fast enough, unfortunately. Rey files it away for later. Should an opportunity present itself, that shame could be tilted to her advantage.

"The sun isn't the only thing you should fear." he declares, deciding to change the subject. "We know you've been targeted for assassination."

One of her eyebrows hikes to her hairline. "And you won't kill me, is that it?" She scowls, unconvinced.

He evades her question a second time, much to her ire. "You can come willingly, or you can be persuaded."

Rey glances at the open door, knowing this wolf is alone, that he has no back up should she take it upon herself to do something... _foolish_. He must read her intention because the next thing she knows, he's in her face, shoving her back against the wall with a single hand braced over her collarbone. His strength is impressive, more impressive than she's anticipated and the air leaves her lungs in a choking rush.

"He trained me, you know—Kylo Ren. I used to be a part of his pack."

 _Ah yes_ , her mind recalls the conversation with Ruelle. "The traitor."

He sneers at the term, but makes no effort to correct her assertion. "I don't like violence, even against _your_ kind." The word is spoken with utter scorn.

"Not by choice." she reminds him venomously.

Again, that shame flickers in his gaze, dimming the golden crescents surrounding his eyes. Taking a deep breath, he steps back, nodding toward the open door. "Move."

Looking begrudgingly between him and the vacant rectangle of darkness, she obeys, her hackles rising as he falls in step a few paces behind her. Once she walks over the threshold into the hallway he commands her to turn left down a long line of matching solitary confinement cells. They must be in an abandoned prison of some kind. From the lack of windows, she guesses something underground. As they reach the end of the corridor, Finn comes up beside her and takes her arm.

"It's safer this way." he replies before she can jerk away.

She doesn't have time to ponder on the statement because they are then ascending a wide stairwell and entering into what appears to be a massive, decommissioned cistern. _It's a main square of sorts_ , she realizes. _How old is this place?_

Heads suddenly snap in their direction and Rey's stomach sinks. Countless sets of hard gold eyes bore into her skin like malignant barbs and she wants nothing more than to shrink into the earth, and disappear. Finn holds firm to her bicep, his tight fingers clamping tighter as a group of wolves rise from their seats at a bar built into the far west corner of the chamber. Rey's spine tingles as she feels the heat behind her eyes again and quickly swallows down the desire to attack, to draw wolf blood.

 _Is this going to be a normal thing?_ she wonders, half joking, half panicked.

Averting her eyes, she forces her attention to the ground in order not to feed the monster's fury and presses her tongue to the roof of her mouth. It's a sign of submission, she knows, but she's easily outnumbered fifty to one. _'Sometimes, you gotta swallow your pride and play it smart,'_ Paige's words echo in her mind. _Smart_ sounds like a good idea right about now.

"Back off, Kessix." Finn warns the wolf heading the approaching group. "She's to be taken to the general, _unharmed_."

"That little tramp cost us ten good wolves. No one is worth—"

"Are you challenging the general's orders?" Finn interjects coolly.

The tendon along Kessix's throat pulses uneasily and, despite his gargantuan size, he retreats. Rey watches with hooded eyes as the other wolves follow, their scathing glares fixed solely on her. Finn wastes no time, yanking her forward and propelling her out of the chamber up another set of long steps. They reach the top without further incident and Finn directs her along a twisted series of hallways. She quickly loses her sense of direction and relinquishes to his lead, letting her thoughts wander for a moment.

Kylo's whiskey eyes plague her mind, taunting her with the memory of his taste and she inwardly berates herself. She'd kissed him, possessively, without thought, without shame. And what of the man she'd bitten? Yes, _bitten_.

 _I sealed his fate_ , she whispers emptily as the reality of it slams into her. Revulsion crawls up her throat and she does everything in her power to hold steady, to conceal the inner turmoil of her thoughts. She breathes evenly, in, out, in. Out.

_I'm a murderer._

The confession rings in her mind like an endless bell, tolling in the depths, shaking her very bones and she wants to cover her ears, to rid herself of the awful sound. But she doesn't. She continues on with Finn's firm grip on her arm, her stare forward and her face a naked map of emotion.

"I know this is my fault."

She startles at his voice. "What?"

"Everything that has happened to you. I know it's my fault. I..." he hesitates, shaking his head. "I didn't intend for it to happen. I swear."

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Rey replies waspishly.

He sighs, his forehead wrinkling with frustration. "Things weren't supposed to happen this way."

She gazes down at her hands, sun-kissed hands. She _belongs_ in the sun. "I want to go home." The declaration doesn't sound childish, or even remotely like a request. It is a statement, vacant, emptied. _I want to sleep in my own bed with my dog. I want to go on the summer road trip with Rose like we'd promised. I want to sit out on the docks and watch the sunrise like I always do. I want..._

The gravity of her reality settles around her neck like a millstone, dragging her deep beneath the hellish waters of an alien ocean and ripping her wings from her spine, drowning her.

"I didn't want this." she murmurs, her voice dreamy and distant to her ears. The heat, it's beginning to scald her eyes and her fangs—they pierce her tongue as she bites down _hard_.

Finn stops, seemingly unaware of the building storm within her. "I know and I am sorry. I mean that." He looks at her fully, his warm eyes conveying genuine regret.

"What is that prisoner doing without proper restraints?" a voice calls from behind them.

Rey turns, her blood coming to a boil as she spots a familiar face. The blonde from the subway, also the same blonde who had grabbed her outside of Heaven's Night.

Finn swiftly places himself between the two of them. "I got this Kaydel."

"After as much trouble as we went through to capture her, after the ten good soldiers we lost, forgive me if I question why in the fuck this parasite is walking around freely."

"I said I got this." Finn's shoulders stiffen and he stands broader, straighter.

"If you'd let me handle it, we could have already had the information we needed and disposed of her."

Rey's hackles stand at full attention and she can feel the last vestiges of her rationality going up in smoke. "Dispose of me?"

Both wolves focus on her at once.

"That's not the general's orders." Finn says firmly, firing a pointed glare at Kaydel. "All the general wants is to talk."

"Then, I'll be disposed of, right?" Rey snaps.

"Yes." Kaydel affirms, her gold eyes glinting.

"Kaydel!" Finn whips around. "Leave. Now."

"No." she says simply, a hidden conversation passing between the two.

Rey would have caught the obvious tell between them if not for her overwhelming rage. She feels the hunger rising in her like a tide and her thoughts turn simple, bloodthirsty.

_—didn't want this—_

_So thirsty—_

_—hate the way they smell._

_Tear into them._

_Kill._

She rockets forward on instinct, barreling past Finn and right for her target. Kaydel anticipates Rey's attack, centering her body and grinning before Rey ever reaches her. They crash with a resounding thud on the floor and skid several yards back in a chaos of tangled limbs. Rey bares her fangs viciously and Kaydel replies in kind, her vivid eyes threatening as Rey struggles over her to maintain control; however, Rey quickly finds herself outmatched when she is upended and smashed into the rough stone floor. Blackness swirls at the edges of her vision and Rey can _feel_ the blood vessels in her neck bursting under Kaydel's ruthless grip. She leers over Rey, her elfin face contorted into deranged, harsh lines of animal wrath.

"Kaydel stop!" Finn's shouts, his voice hazy, far away.

She completely disregards him, glowering down at Rey. "You're fucking with a real wolf now, fledgling!"

Rey fights against the werewolf's hold, nails biting into Kaydel's bare wrists, her arms, her cheek.

But she merely smirks, spitting her words like acid. "You think Kylo Ren is the best our world has to offer. He's nothing but a circus animal, a domesticated _dog_." Her eyes flash with disdain.

A pair of strong arms appear at the edges of Rey's vision, looping around Kaydel's waist and pulling her away. She flails angrily at the owner, fever-deep in her desire to rip Rey's heart through her throat, but Rey is still too busy seeing black stars surrounding her vision to care.

"Lieutenant Connix! That is enough!"

The entire world freezes at once. Rey even holds her breath despite her lungs burning for oxygen and she glances around dazedly at Kaydel and Finn. Their silent gazes are fixed on an approaching figure flanked by two guards. She nears them gradually, though not out of unease or fear as Rey would assume, but displeasure. Her long brunette hair rests in elaborate braids atop her head, thrust with veins of silver and her velvet rich eyes strike Rey, though she cannot place why.

"Finn, see to Kaydel's wounds." the woman commands while keeping her focus fixed on Rey.

"They're superficial—

Finn jerks Kaydel's arm with an angry glare, effectively silencing her.

"I had intended to speak with you," the woman's attention shifts to Finn, "but that can wait. For now, I will speak to the vampire fledgling."

Rey notes the slight distaste in the woman's tone at the mention of _vampire_ and she rises to her feet, more out of self-preservation than respect. Kaydel shoots her a derisive grin as Finn leads her away from the scene and Rey ignores the chafing of her pride.

"I will speak with her alone." the woman tells her guards.

The two hesitate, looking between one another warily, but eventually obey, disappearing down the bend of the hall after Finn and Kaydel. Silence closes in around the remaining occupants of the corridor and Rey finds herself fidgeting, most of her anger dissipated now. The general, Rey concludes, turns and walks down the hall the way she'd come, pausing to glance over her shoulder. Rey bites her lip, suspicious of whether to follow after the woman or not, but knowing she has little other choice.

"My name is General Leia Organa." she says as Rey comes up beside her. "I do not have time to mince words. Do you know where the object is?"

Rey decides she's not here to mince words, either. "Where are the others? Kylo and Ruelle? What did you do with them?"

The general peers at her a long time, tilting her head. "Finn's unit was to retrieve you specifically. I gave no other orders."

"Did they kill him?" Rey's voice betrays a hint of desperation and she hastily quells it.

"I very much doubt it." she whispers.

Something about her answer appeases Rey and she offers the woman an honest reply to her earlier question. "I don't know where the talisman is. I thought I'd lost it in the harbor."

"What about your friend, Rose Tico?"

"What about her?" Rey bristles instantly.

"I mean no ill intent, child." she soothes. "My wolves have scoured the harbor now for three full days. We have lost ten good soldiers to First Order vampires. I ask because these wolves were under my protection. You're not fully unaware of the war between our species, but I've spent too long watching it consume countless names and faces, good men and women." She stops, capturing Rey with her eyes. "To speak frankly, I don't have an endless supply of bodies to sacrifice. Our situation is dire."

Rey considers her words carefully. This general wouldn't leave anything to chance. She means to find that object, one way or another. "You've obviously done your homework on me and anyone I connect with. You've probably got someone watching Rose right now."

"Clever." Leia smirks. "Yes, I've posted wolves at your friends' apartment. Paige Tico filed a missing person's report with the police two days ago. They've also taken in your dog."

"Bodhi." Rey smiles, glad for the first time in several days.

Leia's expression, however, darkens. "The First Order have come snooping around, too, though we've seen no movement against the women thus far."

Rey's stomach churns uneasily. "Are they going to hurt them?" Then, she poses a more direct question. "Are you going to hurt them?"

Leia sighs, halting at a low archway and motioning for Rey to follow. They enter into a storage room filled with old vases and furniture, knick-knacks, stained-glass and other various paintings. Leia stops in the middle of the room, musing over the draping cobwebs and empty shadows, then turns back to Rey. "That is not my intention, but as you well know, war is impartial to its victims."

Anger stirs in Rey anew and she glares pointedly at the general. "If your wolves harm a hair on their head, I'll hold you personally responsible."

A hint of surprise mingled with challenge glitters in the older woman's eyes. "I can see why Kylo Ren kept you alive."

 

.

 

****

**.**

 

She should be scared, not irritated. A part of her is scared, or maybe not? Maybe it's restlessness. She can't be sure anymore. All she knows is she wants to be outside, to feel the electric beat of the world around her like she'd felt it in that club, the unnamed man's pulse thundering under her lips and the taste of his—

Rey viciously tears her mind away from the memories, but her eyes only drop to another indicator of her monstrosity: the empty blood bags on the floor. Finn had brought them to her after she'd been escorted back to her cell. And she'd learned one very distinct if disgusting thing—she hates it cold. She'd finished the bags shamefully, her body turned away from the door and her eyes squeezed shut, while Finn had lingered.

He attempted to apologize to her one final time, but Rey, still not used to her outbursts, had practically roared at him. "Apologies don't mean shit to me! For all your efforts in gaining that talisman and here I am, a vampire! For what? For what?!"

Minutes pass by like hours and she finds herself longing for a view of the sun, just one short glimpse of even a cloudy skyline. The air around her is cold, heavy, and she gets up, pacing for the umpteenth time before sinking to her sit bones again. A part of her wants to sleep, another wants to scream, a third wants to kill. She ultimately decides to lie back, settling her head upon the hard stone floor and gazing blankly up at the uneven ceiling. She wonders on when these cells were constructed, why tunnels connected them to a cistern and most importantly, the general's plans for her.

 _She'll likely have me killed soon_ , Rey deadpans. She should want to cry at this, to feel fear, but all she can muster is a vacant kind of cynicism.

 

.

 

****

**.**

 

The next afternoon, Finn brings her more blood bags. She knows it's afternoon by the smell on his clothes, midday sunlight. She never would have thought she'd be able to smell it so clearly. Settling down, she busies herself with drinking, pausing only to nibble cautiously at her lower lip. Finn remains near the door, standing with his arms folded over his chest.

"You're werewolves." Rey remarks, holding up the half empty bag. "I thought vampires are the one's who drink blood."

"They are." Finn agrees. "We have a back-up supply we purchase under the table. Vampires are much more agreeable when they're half-starving and you have blood on hand."

Rey's expression turns to ice. "You use it for torture."

He looks away, allowing the silence to grow around them. He's also lingering again. She peers shrewdly at him from the corner of her eye as she drinks the last of the ruby liquid and sets the plastic off to the side.

"Tonight is the full moon."

Rey frowns at him. "Why are you telling me this?"

"A warning. It's hard enough for the general to maintain command over these unruly packs. A full moon makes it nigh impossible. After the comrades we lost, I would advise not trying to escape."

"And that's my fault?" she bites angrily.

"No," he concedes, the dismay in his voice only stoking her frustration, "but it doesn't change what you are."

 

.

 

****

**.**

 

_Dreams are never straightforward, never an explicit timeline of beginning, middle or end._

_In this instance, she happens to be running, breaths ragged, arms pumping, hair in her face, the full moon above her and the trees reaching hungrily, beckoning her like twisted, lonely versions of self-murder. And that bulbous, yellow moon, gazing down at her as if some grand eye set atop its bed of royal satin clouds._ A lustful witch's pearl _, she thinks, malignant and whispering such vulgar promises—_

Can you hear him? Smell him? Feel his eager claws digging into the earth? He's dark and filthy like the forest. Can you taste him, little one? That primal musk. It's all for you.

_Such lovely promises..._

_Her muscles moan in protest as she leaps across a ravine, scrambling up the other side and tumbling head first down an unseen drop. Brambles and thorns snag her skin as crickets and owls fall silent in her wake. She crashes onto the bottom with a cry of shock, but is on her feet at once, tearing through the overgrowth like a madwoman, sprinting as far and as fast as she can._ _Nightingales sing above her in their low, lonely voices as she glances behind, searching the underbrush for_ him _. The night breeze combs through her hair, cooling her burning skin when—_

— _a low, permeating growl. It travels deep into her bones and she halts at once, turning awkwardly on her heels to scan the trees again._

 _There, nestled between two gnarled and entwined oak trees; those w_ _hiskey-colored eyes._

Devil's gold.

 _He suddenly bursts forward, a streak of shadow, and she bolts, tearing her legs ahead of her with her heart hammering fiercely at her ribs. She can hear his pursuit, those harsh deep grunts of sound, and she cannot deny the excitement teasing her veins._ Yes _, she thinks,_ chase me. Catch me if you can.

_The forest thins and Rey breaks through the treeline into a vast open meadow with the vigilant moon hanging overhead. Her pursuer gains quickly, his breath hot on her heels and his overwhelming scent encircling her like the coils of a snake. She grins as she risks another peek over her shoulder and finds the massive beast so close she can distinguish the star shapes of brown at the centers of his pupils._

_Suddenly, faster than she can react, he leaps forward, tackling her to the ground and pinning her under his weight. She lands with a soft 'oomph' and a flurry of dandelion seeds bellowing up in front of her as his powerful arms cage her, his deadly claws skimming along her curves, claiming her. She shivers at the cool sensation of his snout pressing to her neck and her core pulses as he inhales, a throaty animal groan leaving his chest. She croons in reply, arching up to his heat in earnest. He licks and nibbles along her shoulder blades, slipping those dangerous hands up over her breasts, teasing her nipples; then, he's grinding her down, pressing her firming to the ground and caressing her inner thighs with his cock._

_She strains to look back, to catch sight of his face, but only those glowing wicked eyes greet her. The rest is left to darkness, a wild, indistinguishable dance of shadows._ _She reaches back, desperate to anchor herself, to identify a solid body and she finds it, gripping ruthlessly into a silken bed of hair. He comes down upon her, growling in a mixture of pleasure and pain, and she gasps as she feels him play with the slick along her entrance, nudging the head of his cock between her folds. She spreads her thighs, readying herself for him, and he pushes into her, filling her to the hilt._

 _Her dream-addled mind loses track of the details and before she realizes it, she finds herself near the cusp of orgasm, a large hand wrapped at her throat and another toying with her clit as the slap of flesh fills her ears. Her hands curl, nails digging into the dirt_ —

—and Rey wakes in the whirlwinds of orgasm, her body tensing, coiling tight like the string of a bow as a loud moan escapes her lips. Her core spasms, her legs tremble and her eyes roll back, the flood of pleasure which inundates her veins completely short-circuiting her brain. She falls back to her cot in a daze, heart pounding and breathing labored. Never in her life has she ever experienced a wet dream that... _intense_. Let alone without some kind of stimulation from herself. She licks her lips, high color tainting her cheeks as she feels the soaking seat of her pants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **PLEASE REMEMBER TO LEAVE ME SOME FEEDBACK!**  
>  **CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM IS WELCOME!**  
>  **IF ANY ERRORS WERE SPOTTED, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!**  
>    
> 
> 
> **Extra Notes & Links:**  
>  What a [snarling bobcat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj2YoWnBloA) sounds like.  
>  [Wol Kessix](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Wol_Kessix) (I couldn't find an image, so I used this character because I like the name.)  
> 


End file.
